SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E9
“Actress”
By Anne Enright
The daughter of a legendary screen icon tries to
make sense of her late mother’s life by separat-
ing the truth from the well-worn anecdotes.“Afterland”
By Lauren Beukes
After a pandemic nearly decimates the world’s
male population, a mother and son go on the
run in a hot-wired car, fleeing a government
that wants to imprison them and a relative set
on exploiting them.“All Adults Here”
By Emma Straub
When a widowed grandmother sees her nem-
esis mowed down by a bus, it inspires her to
connect with her children in ways she’s always
avoided.“And I Do Not Forgive You”
By Amber Sparks
The 22 stories in this collection range from the
surreal to the mundane — and all maintain a
sense of righteous rage at society’s sexism.“The Awkward Black Man”
By Walter Mosley
Coinciding with the announcement of a life-
time achievement award from the National
Book Foundation, Mosley released this collec-
tion of 16 stories about chronically misunder-
stood working-class Black men.“Big Summer”
By Jennifer Weiner
This sendup of Instagram culture follows an
aspiring plus-size influencer who agrees to take
part in the wedding of her mean-girl former
best friend.“A Burning”
By Megha Majumdar
A riveting debut that illuminates three inter-
twined lives in contemporary India, including a
woman whose offhand social media post
prompts the government to pin a terrorist
attack on her.“A Children’s Bible”
By Lydia Millet
A National Book Award finalist, this blistering
classic spins the story of Noah’s Ark through a
witty, modern-day tale of climate change, pro-
ducing a shattering vision of an apocalyptic
future.“Cleanness”
By Garth Greenwell
Greenwell’s story collection revisits the Bulgar-
ian setting of his celebrated novel, “What
Belongs to You,” following a teacher who tries
to forget his tortured upbringing by engaging
in a variety of romantic and erotic attach-
ments.“Crooked Hallelujah”
By Kelli Jo Ford
In the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in 1974, a
single mother tries to protect her daughter
from misfortune, but history has a way of
repeating itself.“The Daughters of Erietown”
By Connie Schultz
The Pulitzer-winning journalist’s first novel
captures the lives of four generations of women
in a hardscrabble Ohio town.“Days of Distraction”
By Alexandra Chang
A narrative mosaic that intersperses the story
with Urban Dictionary definitions and Pew
Research studies, Chang’s debut follows a
Chinese American reporter confronting racism
and sexism in Silicon Valley.“Deacon King Kong”
By James McBride
In a housing project in 1960s Brooklyn, an
elderly man shoots a drug dealer and sets a
zany, fast-paced plot in motion.“Dear Edward”
By Ann Napolitano
A young boy, after surviving a plane crash that
orphaned him, weathers public fascination as
he tries to find a way forward.“The Death of Vivek Oji”
By Akwaeke Emezi
In Emezi’s “Freshwater” follow-up, a Nigerian
boy’s actions raise alarms in his homophobic
and transphobic community.“The Evening and the Morning”
By Ken Follett
This prequel to “The Pillars of the Earth”
imagines the founding of Kingsbridge, and it’s
just as transporting — and lengthy — as Follett’s
earlier epic.“Exciting Times”
By Naoise Dolan
Dolan’s debut has echoes of Sally Rooney with
its tale of a 22-year-old Irish woman who moves
to Hong Kong to teach English and finds herself
in the middle of a love triangle.“A Girl Is a Body of Water”
By Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
In 1970s Uganda, a young girl tries to reconcile
her innate rebelliousness with societal expecta-
tions of female compliance, and wonders if
finding her estranged mother might hold the
key.“The Glass Hotel”
By Emily St. John Mandel
The “Station Eleven” author drew inspiration
from Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme for this
sprawling novel that moves from a remote
five-star hotel to an international cargo ship to
a federal prison as it ponders the human
capacity for self-delusion.“How Much of These Hills Is Gold”
By C Pam Zhang
Two orphaned girls — the children of immi-
grants — go on the run in this brilliant
reimagining of the cowboy narrative.“Interior Chinatown”
By Charles Yu
Yu’s Hollywood satire, a National Book Award
winner, follows an Asian actor whose dreams of
landing a leading role are forever stymied by
typecasting and racism.“The King at the Edge of the World”
By Arthur Phillips
A Turkish doctor on a diplomatic mission to the
court of Queen Elizabeth I in early 1600 s
England is continually astonished by the
strange ways of new acquaintances who treat
him with condescension even while depending
on his medical knowledge.“Leave the World Behind”
By Rumaan Alam
In this novel, shortlisted for a National Book
Award, a White family’s idyllic vacation is
abruptly transformed when a massive power
outage sends a Black family — the purported
owners of the rental home — to the doorstep.“The Lying Life of Adults”
By Elena Ferrante
Fans of Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels will be
thrilled with this Kirkus Prize finalist that once
again considers the divergent yet interlinked
worlds of Italy’s haves and have-nots through
the eyes of a young female protagonist.“Make Russia Great Again”
By Christopher Buckley
The “Thank You for Smoking” author does
something many authors have tried but few
have managed: He effectively satirizes the
Trump administration with an absurd tale
narrated by the president’s imprisoned chief of
staff.“Memorial”
By Bryan Washington
A relationship is tested when a man leaves the
country to care for his dying father, abandon-
ing his visiting mother with his boyfriend.“Mexican Gothic”
By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
After receiving a troubling letter from her
newly married cousin, a young woman in 1950s
Mexico travels to a remote dilapidated house to
investigate a creepy family with generations of
secrets.“The Mirror and the Light”
By Hilary Mantel
The final installment in Mantel’s trilogy about
Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s scheming
right-hand man, has the famous fixer getting
the comeuppance his many foes have long
hoped for.“The New Wilderness”
By Diane Cook
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Cook’s debut
tells the story of a couple who, to save their sick
daughter from toxic city air, agree to live off the
grid on the only stretch of untamed land that
still exists in an ecologically ravaged world.“The Night Watchman”
By Louise Erdrich
A tapestry of stories about the people living on
the Turtle Mountain Reservation in 1950s
North Dakota revolves around one man’s ef-
forts to stop the government from enacting
legislation that would wipe out his tribe’s
identity.“Nights When Nothing Happened”
By Simon Han
The life of a Chinese immigrant couple who
have settled in Texas begins to unravel after
their daughter’s sleepwalking prompts a mis-
understanding within their suburban commu-
nity.“The Office of Historical Corrections”
By Danielle Evans
This second collection from the author of
“Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self”
takes a wry look at the many forms racism takes
in modern America.“Piranesi”
By Susanna Clarke
In a departure from Clarke’s beloved, lengthy
“Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” this slim,
hypnotic novel takes place in a surreal house
where the lone inhabitant spends his days
exploring the seemingly infinite halls.“Plain Bad Heroines”
B y Emily Danforth
Danforth ingeniously interweaves two threads:
a gothic tale of a cursed all-girls school in 1902
and a modern-day Hollywood satire of a cursed
movie about that school.“The Pull of the Stars”
By Emma Donoghue
The 1918 flu pandemic is the timely backdrop
for this searing portrait of Irish women’s lives
scarred by poverty and too many pregnancies
in a society that proclaims, “She doesn’t love
him unless she gives him twelve.”“The Queen of Tuesday”
By Darin Strauss
The author, whose grandfather once met Lu-
cille Ball, imagines what would have happened
if the two had begun an affair, creating in the
process a striking exploration of how fame
confounds the lives of prominent and obscure
people.“Ready Player Two”
By Ernest Cline
The sequel to Cline’s “Ready Player One” picks
up where that best-selling novel left off, with
Wade Watts on a mission to save humanity by
embarking on a new quest within the virtual
world of OASIS.“Real Life”
By Brandon Taylor
Taylor’s debut novel, shortlisted for the Booker
Prize, broadens the embrace of the traditional
campus novel with the tale of a melancholy
PhD student who is Black, southern and gay.“The Resisters”
By Gish Jen
Set in Auto America — a future world of
surveillance and melted polar ice — a couple of
activists find their lives transformed by their
daughter’s baseball prowess.“Rodham”
By Curtis Sittenfeld
The author of “Prep” conjures an alternate
reality in which Hillary never marries Bill —
and Donald Trump isn’t president.“Run Me to Earth”
By Paul Yoon
Though presented as a novel, this tightly
integrated collection of six stories begins in the
bombed-out shell of 1960s Laos, then jumps
across decades and continents as characters
ricochet around the world.“Shuggie Bain”
By Douglas Stuart
This debut has managed a hat trick — a finalist
for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize
and the Booker Prize, which it won — with the
story of an impoverished Scottish boy coming
to terms with his sexuality while trying to keep
his alcoholic mother from self-destructing.“Simon the Fiddler”
By Paulette Jiles
As the Civil War winds down, a spunky, red-
headed musician falls for a pretty Irish nanny
and has to overcome major obstacles to make
her his wife.“Such a Fun Age”
By Kiley Reid
When a grocery store security guard accuses a
Black babysitter of kidnapping her White
charge, it complicates the woman’s relation-
ship with her employer, a social media influ-
encer who fancies herself woke.“Taste of Sugar”
By Marisel Vera
Set in Puerto Rico on the cusp of the 20th
century, a teenager’s romantic vision of marry-
ing for love collides with reality when she
settles into her new life on her husband’s
struggling coffee farm.“Utopia Avenue”
By David Mitchell
Mitchell’s groovy rock novel belts out the lives
of a fictional band in such vivid tones that you
may imagine that you once heard the group
play in the late ’60s.“Valentine”
By Elizabeth Wetmore
Told through a rotation of female perspectives,
residents of 1970s Odessa, Tex., have a variety of
reactions to the rape of a Mexican teenager.“The Vanishing Half”
By Brit Bennett
Bennett’s follow-up to “The Mothers” examines
the lives of twin Black girls from Louisiana
after one grows up, moves away and passes for
White.“Weather”
By Jenny Offill
Told in fragments, as was her 2014 novel, “Dept.
of Speculation,” Offill’s story concerns a librari-
an and mother who is haunted by a seemingly
imminent apocalypse.“White Ivy”
By Susie Yang
A Chinese American woman whose thieving
past had dire consequences finds herself recon-
necting with the privileged White acquaintanc-
es who captivated her as a teen.
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