Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

 

When Cyrus Shams was barely a toddler, his mother died in an Iranian flight shot down by an American missile. Now an American recovering from addiction, Cyrus is determined to explore the meaning of death, to make it matter. A performance artist who’s dying at a New York museum might provide answers. As the plot builds its tension, reveals included, what emerges is a necessary ray of hope amid despondency. It’s not just that Martyr! is one of the most beautiful meditations on death, it’s also one on life. The superbly crafted sentences only add to the luminous transporting experience. 

Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

 

I’ve not read such a heartwarming capture of childhood friendship in a long time! Tomoko spends a crucial middle school year with her mother’s aunt’s family in a stunning manor in the hillsides of Ashiya. She quickly strikes up a deep friendship with her sickly cousin Mina, with whom she tries to learn about life’s truths. The house has a favored pet, a Pygmy hippopotamus, who adds a touch of whimsy to the readable story. From the gorgeous Japanese countryside, to the subtle portrayals of class, to the wistfulness that imbues every page, this is a coming-of-age novel worth savoring.

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

“A national campaign was a great unfathomable whale, with all kinds of subsidiary life flourishing on its skin and between its strands of baleen,” writes Cunningham in an impressive debut chronicling a young volunteer’s growth through the Obama Presidential campaign. The novel has a Gatsbyesque touch in its evocation of fundraising parties and the milieu of the hopeful times. The story shines when the narrator frames the story from his own experiences, a memoir of sorts. At times the story gets a little too ornate. Nevertheless, a different twist to the coming-of-age story told from a ringside seat of history.

Choice by Neel Mukherjee

Riddled with climate anxiety, battling obsessive-compulsive disorder, Ayush can’t get over capitalism’s oversized destructive effect on the lives of ordinary people. Economics is life, life is economics, is a mantra that surfaces over and over again in the first long short story of three. Equally compelling is the final story in which the well-intentioned gift of a cow to a rural impoverished mother systematically unravels the family unit until the unexpected ending. Startling and dark, the stories are a perfect snapshot of life lived under the yoke of capitalism today. Choice is but an illusion, we all bear our burdens.

The Archive of Feelings by Peter Stamm

 

An unnamed middle-aged  archivist in a small Swiss town reflects on the path not taken in this moving melancholic reflection. When we find him, the archivist has lost his job at the local newspaper, displaced by digital technology. Having inherited his parents’ home, he is comfortable nevertheless. With time weighing heavy on his hands, the archivist especially obsesses over Franziska, a school friend whom he had a crush on, and who goes on to become a famous singer. What would it mean to rekindle a relationship with her, he wonders, even as his increasingly small world boxes him in slowly.

The Hunter by Tana French

 

The searing mind-numbing high heat of an exceptionally dry summer is a central character in French’s novel. Fifteen-year-old Trey has just come to terms with her father’s absence and not coping with her brother’s mysterious death in small-town Ireland, when Johnny Reddy, her father, returns with yet another scam to perpetrate on the villagers. Cal, a mentor to Trey and California import, is one of many who smell something fishy in the goings-on. The novel moves more languorously than French’s earlier work, but her signature fingerprint is here too. A first-rate mystery layered over a nuanced portrayal of teen angst. 

The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

 

Everything’s off-kilter during the early months of COVID. The children, especially, are not okay. Pia, the daughter of a French scientist who researches coral in the South Pacific, reluctantly agrees to be with her cardiologist Dad in New York. Dad, Stephen has his hands full with his expectant wife, Kate, who must be shielded from the pandemic. A school teacher, Kate struggles to bond with her stepdaughter while understanding the realities her teen students face. One of these is Athyna, afflicted by severe anxiety. The plot lines converge fluidly in a story that’s full of heart and a page-turner. A+