Publishers Weekly - 09.09.2019

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Review_FICTION Review_FICTION

and emotionally satisfying tale of a long,

love-filled marriage. In the latter story, the

narrator states that “Not all stories are sad,”

a much-needed reminder at this point in the

collection. MacLaughlin skillfully elevates

what could have been merely a writerly

exercise, instead composing a chorus of

women’s justifiable rage echoing down

through the millennia. (Nov.)

What Burns

Dale Peck. Soho, $16.99 trade paper (216p)

ISBN 978-1-64129-082-1

Peck (Night Soil) writes beautifully about

all types of desires people encounter in his

first story collection. Some stories border

on the absurd in a comical way, especially

the two that open the book, “Not Even

Camping Is Like Camping Anymore,”

about a wise-before-his-time five-year-old

who is obsessed with his babysitter’s

teenage son, and “Bliss,” about one man’s

experience attending a support group for

those affected by murder who befriend their

loved ones’ murderers. The bulk of the

remaining stories are more sinister or

violently shocking. In “Dues,” for example,

a man becomes obsessed with how everyone

been portrayed as. These settings are

largely unmoored from traditional chro-

nology, borrowing freely from both classical

tropes and contemporary popular culture,

and some—such as one where incestuous

Myrrha confesses everything to her ther-

apist, or another in which the cyclops

Polyphemus is Galatea’s cyberstalker—

are inventive in form. There is nevertheless

a certain sameness to many of the stories,

perhaps endemic to the project, but

MacLaughlin largely succeeds in varying

the recurrent themes of sexual violence and

women’s subsequent rage and inevitable

transformations, largely imposed by gods

to ensure women’s silence. The emotional

heart of the collection arrives when the

horrific story of Proche and Philomela is

immediately followed by Baucis’s sensually

The Living Days

Ananda Devi, trans. from the French by

Jeffrey Zuckerman. Feminist, $15.95 trade

paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-936932-70-2

Devi’s visceral and chilling novel (after

Eve Out of Her Ruins) is a profound portrait

of two people living on London’s margins.

Seemingly as different as two people can

be, Mary, a white spinster in her late 70s,

and Cub, a 13-year-old black boy from the

housing projects of Brixton, come together

by chance outside Mary’s derelict home on

the Portobello Road. Mary—“just a

shadow, sometimes reflected in a window

pane, one of those old women people

avoided seeing at all”—has nothing: her

only lover disappeared during WWII,

more than 60 years ago, and she has lost her

ability to make a living after a diagnosis of

rheumatoid arthritis. She lives in filth and

a desperate dream of how her life could

have been, until Cub shows up out of the

blue. To escape his cramped and chaotic

home, Cub begins to stay at Mary’s, doing

odd jobs and seemingly giving her a reason

to live. As their relationship changes and

deepens, both characters’ motives alter-

nately muddle and sharpen, culminating

in an act of violence and ownership that

feels inevitable from their very first

meeting. Devi’s telling of their relationship

is brutal and entirely believable, a gorgeous

and haunting depiction of London and the

real lives and memories of those unseen

within it. (Nov.)

Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung

Nina MacLaughlin. FSG Originals, $16 trade

paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-374-53858-3

MacLaughlin, whose debut book was

the carpentry memoir Hammerhead, heads

in a vastly different direction with this

collection of myths recast for the #MeToo

era. In more than 30 short stories, nymphs

and human women are allowed to tell their

own stories, many of which depict gods and

heroes as more dangerous than the lasciv-

ious and mischievous rogues they’ve often

★ Nothing to See Here

Kevin Wilson. Ecco, $26.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-291346-3

W

ilson (Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine) turns a bizarre

premise into a beguiling novel about unexpected

motherhood. When aimless, low-achieving

28-year-old Lillian Breaker receives a mysterious

invitation from Madison Roberts, her former roommate

at a prestigious high school, longtime correspondent,

and now wife to a senator, she does not hesitate to travel

to Franklin, Tenn. Madison offers her a job as a very

discreet governess for the senator’s twin children from

a prior marriage. Ten-year-olds Bessie and Roland

sometimes burst into flames, and Madison is desperate

to avoid a scandal upsetting the senator’s chances of

becoming secretary of state. Lillian accepts and, with begrudging help from Carl,

the senator’s shadowy right-hand man, guides the children through coping

mechanisms in the guest house on the family’s lavish estate while Madison and

Senator Roberts remain icy toward them. Their progress is upended, though,

when the senator’s prospects rapidly change and Lillian has to decide where her

loyalties are. Lillian’s deadpan observations zip from funny to heartbreaking

while her hesitancy and messy love satisfyingly contrast with Madison’s raw drive

for power and tightly controlled affection. Wilson captures the wrenching emo-

tions of caring for children in this exceptional, and exceptionally hilarious, novel.

Agent: Julie Barer, the Book Group. (Nov.)

Anisa Alabastro

Chris Barsanti

Nancy Bloch

Vicki Borah Bloom

Richard Brewer

Charlene Brusso

Kristin Centorcelli

Rob Clough

Lynda Brill Comerford

Sue Corbett

Phoebe Cramer

Victoria Fraser

Shaenon Garrity

Idris Grey

Sara Grochowski

Patricia Guy

Nan Hawley

Don Herron

Mary M. Jones

Michael M. Jones

Bridget Keown

Patty MacDonald

Victoria McManus

Constance L. Martin

Shannon Maughan

Chloe Maveal

Tasha Muresan

Julie Naughton

Eric Norton

Dionne Obeso

Nathalie op de Beeck

Ben Perry

Leonard Picker

Gwyn Plummer

Ingrid Roper

Antonia Saxon

Lorraine Savage

Martha Schulman

Erin Talbert

Kathy Weeks

Monica Whitebread

Sarah Yung

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