38 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ NOVEMBER 4, 2019
Review_FICTION
brings veracity to a complex tale. After
nearly two years of no communication,
Enid writes her husband from the retreat,
intending to return to being a mother but
wanting a divorce. He agrees with the
proviso that he has full custody of their
children. The ensuing, dragged-out
court case
places Enid at
odds with her
older sister,
Joan, who not
only holds the
family fortune,
but has made
Enid’s son, Ian
(the author’s
father), her heir,
having taken
care of Enid’s two other children during
her absence. The story unfolds primarily
through Enid’s daughter, Finetta,
bemoaning the weekly visits to her
mother in a nursing home in 1964, and
Enid, who has just learned she’s about to
see the son she hasn’t laid eyes on in 25years, and whom she essentially gave to
her sister for £500. This robust story
provides insight into aristocratic duties,
sibling revenge, and the convoluted feel-
ings that can arise between mothers and
their children. This lush family saga will
appeal to fans of Ann Patchett. (Feb.)The Teacher
Michal Ben-Naftali, trans. from the Hebrew
by Daniella Zamir. Open Letter, $14.95 trade
paper (184p) ISBN 978-1-948830-07-2
Ben-Naftali’s captivating English-
language debut is based on events of a
Holocaust survivor’s life and subsequent
suicide, as imagined by one of her former
students. Elsa Weiss, an English teacher
in Tel Aviv, is the favorite instructor of
the nameless narrator. The narrator and
her fellow students are fascinated by and
afraid of their teacher, who they sense is
hiding a mystery, though they are inca-
pable of comprehending her hidden
trauma. At 60, Weiss doesn’t even
bother learning student’s names and
seems different from their other teachers.The narrator grows up and becomes a
teacher and remains mystified by Weiss.
As an adult, she fictionalizes the path
Weiss travels from her native Hungary
after being separated from her parents in
1944 as she and her husband depart on a
Kastner train to Palestine. The narrator
imagines the atrocities that befall Weiss
in the Bergen-Belsen camp and dreams
that Weiss taught the imprisoned children.
After her release from a sanatorium,
Weiss learns the war is over, reunites with
her brother’s
family in Tel
Aviv, and
obtains a
divorce. In
researching
Weiss, the nar-
rator does some
footwork and
meets other
survivors who
tell her of the
atrocities they witnessed. This heart-
breaking novel is highlighted by Ben-
Naftali’s spare prose and insightful
observations. The author seamlessly
blends history and fiction to forge a riveting
novel. (Jan.)The Wagers
Sean Michaels. Tin House, $15.95 trade
paper (398p) ISBN 978-1-947793-63-7
Luck (and the lack of it) is the subject
of this quirky work from Michaels (Us
Conductors). At 36, Theo Potiris is a
struggling stand-up comedian, despite
one appearance on Conan. He works in
his parents’ grocery store and plays the
local comedy clubs on open-mic nights.
Then, one day, he takes his 13-year-old
niece, Hanna, to the track, where she
wins $4 million on her first pick. This
rocks Theo’s world to the point where he
quits his job in favor of employment
with the Rabbit Foot, a consortium of
scientists who are attempting to quantify
luck and monetize it. Then, he meets a
woman named Simone who recruits him
for the No Name Gang, which attempts
to steal luck from those who hoard it. As
part of this gang, Theo helps hijack luck
from novelist Daniel Merrett Leys,
author of The Labrador Sea, and billionaire
businessman Z. Largo, with ever
increasing risk of arrest or betrayal.★ Little Gods
Meng Jin. Custom House, $26.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-293595-3J
in’s stunning debut follows 17-year-old Liya on her
journey to China with the ashes of her recently
deceased mother, a mysterious and mercurial woman
whom Liya both loved and resented. Su Lan, her
mother, was a former physicist from China who died in
America, where she had lived and worked for nearly
two decades. Intertwined with Liya’s grief-stricken
quest is the voice of Zhu Wen, Su Lan’s former neighbor
in Shanghai, whose memory of Su Lan as a beautiful,
charismatic, and fiercely brilliant physics student in a
happy marriage to a handsome doctor does not square
with the woman Liya knows. The third narrative strand
belongs to Yongzong, Su Lan’s husband and Liya’s father, who has long lost touch
with Su Lan and has never known Liya. Liya arrives in China with only her
mother’s last known address, in Shanghai, where Su Lan had once lived with
Yongzong. On first meeting Zhu Wen there, Liya realizes just how little she knew
about her mother. Liya then visits the small mountain village where her mother
was raised, and goes to Beijing, where she finds out what happened during the
night of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when she was born and Su Lan
began to transform from a promising young student to a living ghost. Artfully
composed and emotionally searing, Jin’s debut about lost girls, bottomless
ambition, and the myriad ways family members can hurt and betray one another
is gripping from beginning to end. This is a beautiful, intensely moving debut.
Agent: Jin Auh, the Wylie Agency. (Jan.)