Review_FICTION
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 55Tash Aw’s We, the Survivors is a captivating
novel about a moment of violence set against
the backdrop of an ever-changing Malaysia
(reviewed on this page).★ The Fool and Other Moral Tales
Anne Serre, trans. from the French by Mark
Hutchinson. New Directions, $15.95 trade
paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2716-2
Symbols and signs take on life-changing
meanings in Serre’s three sharp, sophisti-
cated, and inventive tales (following The
Governesses). Examining a tarot deck given
to her by a friend, the narrator of “The Fool”
realizes she has already encountered the
eponymous card in real life: “You think
things appear only on playing cards.... In
reality, they exist in life.” The Fool has
already come to her in various guises,
including Carl, her lover, and the nameless
childhood dread that long ago inspired her
to become a writer, “to make a pact with
the thing that threatens you.” In the slyly
funny anti-bildungsroman “The Narrator,”
a man travels to a chalet to write, and as
he engages in an affair with his landlady,
he’s both delighted and inundated with
material, feeling that “nothing remained
of the world but... the ghostly apparitions
of dreams,” which he will turn into a book.
But his inability to connect with others
occasions a crisis; he no longer wishes “to
feel holier-than-thou with your precious
images... to feel smug simply because
you’re different.” Dreamy and deeply
sexual, “The Wishing Table” revisits and
revises the literature of debauchery; its
narrator, now nearing 40, recounts a
happily incestuous childhood. Drawing
on fairy tales and psychoanalysis, por-
nography and poststructuralism, Serre
constructs stunning and searing stories
that will remain with readers. (Sept.)
The World That We Knew
Alice Hoffman. Simon & Schuster, $27.99
(384p) ISBN 978-1-5011-3757-0
Set in Nazi-occupied France between
1941 and 1944, Hoffman’s latest (after
The Rules of Magic) is a bittersweet parable
about the costs of survival and the behaviors
that define humanity. The narrative follows
several groups of characters: teenage Julien
Lévi and his older brother, Victor, whose
family is murdered by the Nazis; Ettie, a
rabbi’s daughter, who with Victor and
Marianne, the Lévis’ former (Protestant)
housekeeper, become members of the
Resistance; and Lea Kohn, a schoolgirl
fleeing Berlin with her “cousin” Ava.
Unbeknownst to most of the characters,
Ava is actually a golem—a soulless
supernatural protector out of Jewish
folklore—and her interactions with them
and the ways in which she touches their
lives serve as touchstones for Hoffman’s
reflections on the power of love to redeem
and the challenges of achieving humanity,
or retaining it, under such challenging
circumstances. Though coincidence gov-
erns much of the meeting and team-ups of
her characters, Hoffman mitigates any
implausibility through the fairy tale
quality of Ava’s involvement and her
supernatural powers of salvation. The
attention to the harsh historical facts makes
the reader care all the more strongly about
the fates of all of the characters. Hoffman
offers a sober appraisal of the Holocaust
and the tragedies and triumphs of those
who endured its atrocities. (Sept.)★ We, the Survivors
Tash Aw. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27
(336p) ISBN 978-0-374-28724-5
Aw’s captivating novel (after Five Star
Billionaire) revolves around a fateful
moment of violence set against the back-
drop of an ever-changing Malaysia. In an
almost stream-of-consciousness work,
readers become the proverbial fly on the
wall as the main character, Ah Hock, aconvicted murderer, tells his tale to a
graduate student working on a book. In
alternating chapters of Ah Hock’s rambling
confession and brief personal exchanges
between Hock and his interviewer, Hock’s
story wanders through his poverty-ridden
upbringing with a single mother, his
unsuccessful marriage, his murder trial, his
days in prison, and, finally, to the night he
committed murder. A simple man, Hock
has spent his life believing hard work would
bring success; as the manager of a fish farm,
he reaches that success, but when his
workers develop cholera, he’s forced to
find replacements. Desperate for a solution,
Hock seeks help from a boyhood friend
now trafficking illegal workers, and this
fateful decision leads him to an act of
violence he never thought himself capable
of. As Hock and his interviewer seek to
understand what brought him to kill,
readers are drawn into a Malaysia over-
whelmed with thousands of immigrants
seeking refuge, employment, and survival.
Aw’s potent work entraps readers in the
slow, fateful descent of its main character,
witnessing his life spiral to its inevitable
conclusion. (Sept.)Opioid, Indiana
Brian Allen Carr. Soho, $16 trade paper
(224p) ISBN 978-1-64129-078-4
The landscape of Middle America is
grim but has glimmers of hope in this
outstanding novel from Carr (Sip). Riggle,
17, is on the verge of adulthood and feels
like a misfit in the rural Indiana town he
has recently moved to from his native Texas.
His parents dead, he lives with his young
uncle Joe and Joe’s girlfriend, Peggy, more
an object of lust to Riggle than a surrogate
mom. Riggle’s suspension from school for
vaping only amps up his aimlessness. He
has one good friend, named Bennet, a fellow
high school student and neighbor. They
hang out, go to the movies together, and
ponder their futures after the recent school
shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School. Nostalgia about his mother’s
omelets leads Riggle to a restaurant called
Broth, where he finds a connection with
the chef and almost lands a job. Joe is away
from home, getting high—in fact, everyone
around seems to get high—and the
upcoming rent payment looms large. As
Riggle’s week of suspension progresses,
flashbacks reveal happier times during hisFiction
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