demo-11545703352

44 JULY 2018 VOGUE.COM``````The best books this month offer a differentkind of diversion. By Megan O’Grady.Escape BatchBOOKSVLIFEMy Year of Rest and RelaxationThe comely young New York gallery assistant in OttessaMoshfegh’s darkly hilarious second novel, My Year of Restand Relaxation (Penguin Press), just wants to sleep 24/7—toescape, with chemical assistance, the onslaught of “thoughtsand judgments” that “made it hard not to hate everyoneand everything.” Moshfegh, whose debut novel, Eileen, wasshortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, strikes a mordant note inher 2000-set sophomore effort, which is filled with corrosivecommentary on—among other things—friendship, dating,and the kind of contemporary art that inspires little more thana “trip around the corner to buy an unflattering outfit fromComme des Garçons.” She’s the kind of provocateur whomakes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.``````AyitiA reprint of Roxane Gay’sindelible first story collection,Ayiti (Grove), collects voicesfrom the Haitian diaspora:A wide-eyed teenageboy, recently arrived inMiami, swiftly toughensas he’s teased at school;a bride abducted on herhoneymoon and held forransom atomizes her ordeal.The themes explored inGay’s nonfiction, such asthe transactional natureof violence and the waysin which stereotypes ofpoverty add another layerof dehumanization, are just as potent here. Even her morelyrical mode is filtered through a keen sense of the lostpromise of one country and the blinkered privilege of theother. It’s Gay’s unflinching directness—the sense that hercharacters are in the room with you, telling it like it is—thatmakes her irresistible.``````The GreatBelieversCultural revolutions of thepast painfully reverberate inRebecca Makkai’s deft thirdnovel, The Great Believers(Viking), which capturesboth the devastation ofthe AIDS crisis in 1980sChicago and the emotionalaftershocks of those losses.Connecting the fate of ayoung art-gallery developerto that of his deceased bestfriend’s little sister, the novelmoves back and forth intime from the bigotry andrighteousness of one erato the murky polarizationsof our own.``````UpstateNovels about fathers and theirgrown daughters are rare, andJames Wood’s Upstate (FSG)is a welcome addition to thatultraslim canon. An Englishmanvisits his fragile professordaughter in an upstate NewYork college town, and thetrip prompts curmudgeonlyobservations of American life:the dubious croissants, themanic “Victorian” B-and-Bdecor. But the novel soondeepens into a consideration ofthe role we play in our children’slives. “Though your child wasonly briefly a child,” Alan reflects,“you never quite got used toseeing her no longer one.” GAY: © 2018, GROVE ATLANTIC, INC. MOSHFEGH AND MAKKAI: © 2018 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE. WOOD: © 2018 MACMILLAN.