|
2008 was a banner year for fiction. Although I was hard-pressed to narrow down my list of deserving books to just a few exquisite gems, here are my absolute favorites:
"The Lazarus Project" by Aleksandar Hemon, (Riverhead Books, $24.95). America was caught up in a hysterical swirl of paranoia and fear. In Chicago, a flood of immigrants speaking unfamiliar languages made some Chicagoans nervous. The year was 1908, threats of terrorism and anarchism made for electrifying headlines in the Chicago newspapers. A young Jewish immigrant named Lazarus Averbuch appeared at the door of George Shippy, Chicago's police chief. Shippy shot him dead.
Aleksandar Hemon was intrigued by this true story. He observed some parallels between then and now. His novel revisits the hysteria ripped from century-old headlines. Brik, a Bosnian-American writer somewhat like Hemon, retraces Averbuch's odyssey from anti-Semitic pogroms in central Europe to his death in that Chicago mansion. A finalist for the National Book Award, "The Lazarus Project" should have won it.
"Knockemstiff" by Donald Ray Pollack (Doubleday, $22.95). For 30 years Donald Ray Pollack labored in the paper mill at Chillicothe. He never relinquished his dream of becoming a writer. Knockem-stiff was the name of a little hollow outside of Chillicothe where Pollack grew up. The young Pollack observed how the inhabitants of this hardscrabble sort of place struggled and brawled. This collection of short stories immortalizes a vanished community with a potency that will knock a reader right upside the head. Pollock's pithy tales swerve across the pages in angelic agony. These tortured souls extract a measure of bitter redemption out of brutality and desolation. An awesome debut.
"Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26). Ghosh takes readers on an epic journey of the mind. Set in India in the 1830s, "Sea of Poppies" revolves around the opium trade that English traders plied as they shipped Indian opium to China. Ghosh creates numerous vivid characters and scenes. There are love stories, shocking violence and soaring flights of linguistic fancy as the author re-creates the polyglot languages of the period. This novel, the first in a planned trilogy, comes to a startling climax as most of the main characters sail from India on a ship called "The Ibis." I can't wait for the next book.
"A Mercy" by Toni Morrison (Knopf, $23.95). In "A Mercy," Toni Morrison explores slavery before it became a form of institutionalized racism. In the 1680s slavery came in many forms. Morrison's novella examines the impact of enforced servitude upon a cast of characters of different races who are brought together on a Virginia farm. Haunting, brilliantly rendered, "A Mercy" illustrates once more why Morrison is one of our greatest novelists.
Honorable Mentions: "Home" by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25); "The Mayor's Tongue" by Nathaniel Rich (Riverhead, $24.95); "When Will There Be Good News" by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown, $25); "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb (Harper, $29.95).
Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 12/23/08; 3:01:41 PM
from the dept.
|
