106 Time December 2–9, 2019
THE 10 BEST FICTION BOOKS
1. THE
NICKEL BOYS
Colson Whitehead
Inspired by a Florida
news story, the Pulitzer
Prize winner imagines
two black boys fighting
to survive a juvenile
reformatory in the Jim
Crow South. Like The
Underground Railroad,
this book draws from U.S.
history to underscore the
continued relevance of the
characters’ oppression.6. TRUST
EXERCISE
Susan Choi
Choi plays with subjectiv-
ity, first telling the story of
two performing-arts-
school students who get
high on summer romance
and come down hard
under the influence of a
manipulative teacher—
and then overriding it
with a jarring shift in per-
spective halfway through
the novel.7. ON EARTH
WE’RE BRIEFLY
GORGEOUS
Ocean Vuong
The poet’s semi-
autobiographical debut
novel follows Little Dog,
a Vietnamese-American
boy who grows up in
icy Hartford, Conn.,
raised by a mother and
grandmother who bear
the scars of poverty,
mental illness and the
Vietnam War.8. WHERE
REASONS END
Yiyun Li
Li’s narrator dwells in an
area between life and
death as she imagines a
dialogue with her teenage
son, who recently died by
suicide—a loss the author
herself experienced. Their
conversation exists in a
world separate from time,
where the two can reflect
on the life they shared.9. THE
TOPEKA SCHOOL
Ben Lerner
In this novel about a
high school debate
champion, his therapist
parents and a school
outcast, the author works
to unfurl the intermingled
roots and expressions of
“toxic masculinity,” explor-
ing male rage and the
language that can help it
metastasize.10. DRIVE YOUR
PLOW OVER THE
BONES OF THE DEAD
Olga Tokarczuk, trans.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Blending mystery and fairy
tale, the Nobel laureate
comments on the flawed
way we tend to designate
sanity as her protagonist
inserts herself into the
investigation of murders
she believes are tied to a
town’s proclivity for hunting.2. THE
TESTAMENTS
Margaret Atwood
The legendary author
returns to the Republic
of Gilead 34 years
after the release of her
classic, The Handmaid’s
Tale. Her page-turning
sequel traces the rise
and ultimate fall of the
totalitarian theocracy, a
society with frightening
parallels to the ugliest
aspects of humanity.3. LOST CHILDREN
ARCHIVE
Valeria Luiselli
A family of four embarks
on a road trip from New
York to Arizona, hoping
to discover news of two
Mexican children whose
mother, an acquaintance,
awaits them in the
U.S. Luiselli, who was
born in Mexico, offers a
timely and illuminating
reflection on family
separation.4. THE NEED
Helen Phillips
While home with her
young daughter and
infant son, Molly, a
paleo botanist, believes
she hears an intruder.
But who—or what—has
invaded the overworked
mother’s world that eve-
ning is only the beginning
of Phillips’ heart-stopping
psychological examina-
tion of parenthood and its
attendant anxieties.5. BLACK
LEOPARD,
RED WOLF
Marlon James
A refreshing entry in a
genre overfed by the
myths of Western and
Northern Europe, the
Booker Prize winner’s fan-
tasy traces the epic search
for a lost child, drawing on
the tropes, character types
and narrative renderings
of African mythology and
true history.Atwood’s novel
shared the
2019 Booker
Prize with Girl,
Woman, Other