The Round House
by Louise Erdrich (Harper, $28)
“When a story comes from deep within an author, a reader knows it,” said Susan Salter Reynolds in Newsday. Louise Erdrich’s 14th novel is one of those. As we watch an Ojibwe man, aided by his 13-year-old son, work to find the man who raped his wife at the reservation’s round house, “there are so many ways” the story could unfold and yet only one. The organic structure makes the tale all the more painfully human—“complete with rage, chaos, resonance, history, uncertainty, [and] certainty.”
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Skagboys
by Irvine Welsh (Norton, $27)
Twenty years after Irvine Welsh “roared onto the British literary scene” with Trainspotting, he’s back to pick up the tale of Sick Boy, Renton, and an assorted cast of Scottish drug fiends, said Steve Almond in The New York Times. Skagboys aims high; it’s Welsh’s “attempt at a social epic worthy of Dickens.” But his story is disjointed, and worse, “confirms him as another one-hit wonder whose ambitions as a social critic are continually undone by his need to enthrall and disgust.”
Silent House
by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf, $27)
This 1983 Orhan Pamuk novel, finally translated into English, could serve as “an excellent introduction to a body of work that is worthy of its 2006 Nobel Prize,” said Mike Fischer in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Though clearly an “apprentice” effort, it offers an engaging story about Turkey on the eve of a 1980 military coup, and establishes a theme that Pamuk has explored throughout his career: How might any non-Western country “join the global village while remaining true to itself?”
Ancient Light
by John Banville (Knopf, $26)
John Banville’s 16th novel is “an unsettling and beautiful work,” said Moira Hodgson in The Wall Street Journal. The final book in a trilogy that began with 2001’s Eclipse, it returns to the tale of retired actor Alexander Cleave, focusing on his memories of a teenage affair with a much older woman. Though an “unconvincing” subplot weakens Ancient Light, “Banville’s account of the affair is so vivid, the characters so fully realized,” that it could stand alone as a small masterpiece.
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'It's hard to discern what it actually means'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
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Trump lambasts crime, but his administration is cutting gun violence preventionThe Explainer The DOJ has canceled at least $500 million in public safety grants
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Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”