The Washington Post - USA (2020-11-22)

E10 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2020 EZ EE E11

“Writers & Lovers”

By Lily King, Grove

FICTION | The author of

“Euphoria” breaks all

the rules with her new

book: It’s a novel about

trying to write a novel

and it’s dangerously ro-

mantic, bold and fear-

less enough to imagine

the possibility of un-

bounded happiness. Ac-

cording to the penal code of literary

fiction, that’s a violation of Section 364,

Prohibiting Unlawful Departure from

Ambiguity and Despair. And yet, this story

of a grieving, struggling writer torn be-

tween two suitors delivers such pure joy

that there may be no surer antidote to

2020’s woes.

[email protected]

“Vesper Flights”

By Helen Macdonald, Grove

NONFICTION | “So many

of our stories about na-

ture are about testing

ourselves against it, set-

ting ourselves against

it, defining our humani-

ty against it,” Macdon-

ald writes in “Vesper

Flights.” In the 41 essays

that make up this col-

lection, the naturalist and author of “H Is

for Hawk” seeks to tell another type of

nature story, one that asks readers to see

the natural world as something other than

a reflection of themselves. Doing so, she

believes, may just help us save it.

“Unworthy Republic:

The Dispossession of Native Americans

and the Road to Indian Territory”

By Claudio Saunt, W. W. Norton

NONFICTION | A Nation-

al Book Award finalist,

Saunt’s sweeping work

candidly explores the

horrors of Native Amer-

ican expulsion while il-

luminating the crucial

role that Southern en-

slavers — eyeing native

lands to take over for

themselves — played in shaping early

19th-century policy. This alone would

make for an important study, but Saunt

also manages to do something truly rare:

destroy the illusion that history’s course is

inevitable and recover the reality of the

multiple possibilities that confronted con-

temporaries. Things could have been oth-

erwise.

“Transcendent Kingdom”

By Yaa Gyasi, Knopf

FICTION | The “Homego-

ing” author’s new novel

works in a completely

different register, follow-

ing a young Ghanaian-

American neuroscientist

pulled between the data-

driven beliefs of her col-

leagues and the religious

dogma of her family. A

book of profound scientific and spiritual

reflection, it recalls the works of Richard

Powers and Marilynne Robinson, though

it’s anything but derivative. Gyasi’s ability to

interrogate medical and religious issues in

the context of America’s fraught racial

environment makes her one of the most

enlightening novelists writing today.

“Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir”

By Natasha Trethewey, Ecco

NONFICTION | The for-

mer U.S. poet laureate

pays tribute to her

mother, who was fatally

shot at 40 by her second

husband. Trethewey ex-

cavates her mother’s

life, transforming her

from tragic victim to lu-

minous human being —

a living, breathing dynamo, coming of age

in the Jim Crow South, breaking out of the

restrictions imposed on her as a Black

woman. A political as well as personal

book, it’s as much the story of a person cut

down in her prime as an exploration of

power in America.

“Homeland Elegies”

By Ayad Akhtar, L ittle, Brown

FICTION | Akhtar, a Pulit-

zer-winning playwright,

blurs the line between

fact and fiction with this

autobiographical novel

that speaks to the agony

of trying to articulate a

nuanced critique of faith

and politics in an age of

shrieking partisanship.

The story’s sinuous plot concerns the lives of

a playwright and his Pakistani immigrant

father, assessing their attitudes toward the

United States as their fortunes rise and fall.

Personal episodes mingle with engaging dis-

quisitions on the dilution of antitrust law

and other arcane economic issues. Some-

how, Akhtar makes it all work, brilliantly.

“Hidden Valley Road:

Inside the Mind of an American Family”

By Robert Kolker, Doubleday

NONFICTION | The au-

thor of “Lost Girls” ex-

plores how 12 siblings

— half of them diag-

nosed with schizophre-

nia — and their parents

navigated illness, un-

speakable violence and

the crushed promise of

the American Dream

during the 1960s and ’70s. Interwoven

with this harrowing familial story is the

history of how the science on schizophre-

nia has fitfully evolved, from the eras of

institutionalization and shock therapy, to

the profound disagreements about the

cause and origins of the illness, to the

search for genetic markers.

“Hamnet”

By Maggie O’Farrell, Knopf

FICTION | This richly

drawn and intimate por-

trait of 16th-century Eng-

lish life is set against the

arrival of one devastating

event: the loss of William

Shakespeare’s only son to

the plague. O’Farrell is

not intimidated by the

presence of the Bard’s

canon or the paucity of the historical record,

and she makes no effort to lard her pages

with intimations of his genius or cute allu-

sions to his plays. Rather, she constructs a

suspenseful and moving story about the way

grief viciously recalibrates a marriage.

“The Cold Millions”

By Jess Walter, Harper

FICTION | Walter struc-

tures his book about

two lovable, penniless

brothers trying to make

ends meet in Spokane,

Wash., as a concoction

of tales swirling around

the violent repression

of laborers in the early

20th century. The result

could have been an earnest historical

novel about the brutal struggle for fair

wages, but Walter has instead created a

rip-roaring work of harrowing adventures

and irresistible characters, including the

real-life Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a preg-

nant 19-year-old who’s also an indomita-

ble union firebrand.

“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”

By Isabel Wilkerson, Random House

NONFICTION | The Pulit-

zer Prize-winning jour-

nalist and author of “The

Warmth of Other Suns”

(2010) delivers a well-

timed reevaluation of

American divisions.

Wilkerson’s thesis is that

the country’s current ob-

session with race is

somewhat misplaced; there is a deeper and

more intractable system that would more

accurately be called American caste. Re-

leased amid the nation’s racial reckoning,

the book immediately rocketed up bestseller

lists with an assist from Oprah, who called it

her most important book club pick ever.

BY BOOK WORLD REVIEWERS

ILLUSTRATION BY AYSHA TENGIZ

The 10

standouts

of 2020

best books