New York Magazine - USA (2019-09-16)

september 16–29, 2019 | new york 77

...ENJOY

RichinLove,by

JosephineHumphreys,

ifyourfunnybone

needsagoodrubbing

andyourheartstrings

needadefttugging?

...PLAY

three-dimensionalchess(whichis

thebestnumberofdimensions)

withTrustExercise,bySusanChoi,

anovelthattakesplaceata

performing-artshighschooland

pullsoffa“Whoa,dude”plottwistin

highliteraryform?

Since Zink apparently torches much of her

writing, it’s hard to know how many novels she

has written, but Doxology is the fifth one pub-

lished in the conventional format with blurbs and

a copyright page. It tells the story of two devilish

and carefree youngstersin 1990 whoconceive

a baby who is born and

almost immediately

falls off a table during a

moment of neglect. The

baby is fine. The par-

ents, who live in New

York, do their best on

a minimal combined

income. A third char-

acter, their friend Joe,

is afflicted with some-

thing called Wilson’s

syndrome, a contestedmedicalconditionthat

may or may not be the causeofhisbuoyantper-

sonality and musical gifts.Joebecomesarock

star, a tragedy occurs,andthestoryshiftsto

Flora, the baby who felloffthetableandgrew

up to become a Green Partyactivist.

If someone gave a novelisttheassignmentto

“write a rivetingly plottedbookthatincorpo-

rates all of the above plusIanMacKaye,over-

grazing in Ethiopia, highereducation,com-

puter programming, andtenantrights,”I’dsay,

“ Impossible!”—and yethereitis.Thebookis 416

pages long, and there arezerothrowawaysen-

tences. It also containspossiblythebestdefini-

tion of good sex ever committedtopaper.Iwon’t

spoil it. It is about 60 percentofthewayin.

The Dutch House

BY ANN PATCHETT

FICTION, SEPTEMBER 24

➽dannyconroyis

sevenyearsyoungerthan

hissister,Maeve,whois

partsurrogateparent

andpartoracle.Their

motherhasmysteriously

disappeared.Theyhave

amalignantstepmother,

andtheirfatherisan

icicle;whenoneofhis

childrensobs,here-

spondsbystating,“You

have to stop.” The familylivesinaPhiladelphia

mansion called the DutchHouse,whichwasin-

fested with raccoons whenthefatherboughtit

from the bank and is nowrestoredtoitsformer

ballroomed and gilded-ceilingedglory.

At a young age, MaeveandDannyexperiencea

reversal of fortune involvingestatelaw.Dramaen-

sues. Sometimes I enjoy

reading sentences that

have gone through an

author’s mental paper

shredder and require

piecing back together by

a reader, but I also enjoy

sentences like the ones

Patchett writes, which

go from point A to point

B by the straightest pos-

sible route. This is an au-

thor who specializes in

extremely legible yarns.

SUGGESTED

PAIRING

Pair Succession with Martha

McPhee’s novel Dear Money:

a satirical plunge into

the world of deluded, money-

obsessed mini-Machiavellis!

RIYL:

RJennifer Egan’s

A Visit From the

Goon Squad

RAfter Hours

RHelen DeWitt

RFlipper

(band, not dolphin)

RBarbara Browning

RIYL:

RMeghan Daum’s

Life Would Be

Perfect If I Lived

in That House

RJane Austen’s

Northanger Abbey

RNovels about

siblings who band

together against

the world or their

stepmother

... DIVE

into Opioid, Indiana,

by Brian Allen Carr,

a book about a teen

boy in rural Indiana

who lives in a world

ofprecarity and

opioids and Twitter?

:+<'21·7<28...

... SLIDE

into Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S.

Connell, a book that’s like Mad

Men but if Don Draper were a

middle-class mom in Kansas City

with a relatable personality?

... VERIFY

the seemingly impossible fact

that a mere slip of a novel,

Re e f, by Romesh Gunesekera,

is described—accurately—

in one of its blurbs

as the “Asian Tempest”?

... IMPALE YOURSELF

on They Will Have to Die

Now: Mosul and the Fall of

the Caliphate, by James

Verini, the definitive

account of what happened

after America turned its (our)

lethal attention away from Iraq?

PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF HBO (SUCCESSION)