American Literature

The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb

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The Night of the Hunter

A deliciously eerie slice of period piece Americana

Brooding 1953 cult favourite, The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb is perhaps better known for its darkly expressionistic film adaptation, starring Robert Mitchum. For film fans seeking out the book, Mitchum’s charismatic, menacing performance as Harry Powell, self-proclaimed preacher and depraved soul, inevitably sears itself onto the page, a character with evil intent from the moment we first meet him, plotting to lay his hands on a bank robber’s loot. In Grubb’s nightmarish Southern Gothic cat-and-mouse tale, a classic contest of good versus evil is underway, as the preacher’s predilection for seduction, theft and murder is resisted by a lionhearted boy and his little sister.

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Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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Long Island Compromise

Screamingly funny satire on wealth and privilege

When Carl Fletcher, styrofoam factory owner and one of Long Island’s richer residents, is kidnapped from his driveway one morning, life changes forever for the Fletcher family. Carl is returned unhurt, at least physically, in exchange for a large pile of cash placed on a baggage carousel at La Guardia airport, but the kidnapping still reverberates decades later. His three children have turned out deeply dysfunctional, each in their own way. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is an extremely funny satire and deep dive into privilege, Jewish identity and a spot-on comment on how we live now.

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Held by Anne Michaels

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Held

What will survive of us

A poetic gem on this year’s pleasingly eclectic Booker Prize Longlist, Held by Anne Michaels explores the many ways that the dead walk alongside us. Spanning time and space, her haunting and humane novel portrays four generations of one family and how their choices, traumas, and loves resonate through decades, if not centuries. From a World War I soldier hovering between life and death on the battlefield, to his granddaughter’s career as a war medic and her own bequeathal, Michaels threads their lives together in a meditation on mortality and inherited history.

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James by Percival Everett

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James

The other side of Huckleberry Finn's adventure

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a classic in American juvenile fiction. Set in 1880s Missouri, it’s the story of the friendship between a young white boy and a black slave, both on the run, from a violent father and a slave owner. Much loved for its portrayal of youthful adventure, Huckleberry Finn, packed with racial stereotypes and the N-word, makes for uncomfortable reading today. In James by Percival Everett, we get the story from the black man’s perspective, and it’s far cry from the charming adventure story so many readers have come to love.

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All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley

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All the Beauty in the World

Life, death, and the art of seeing

A stand-out read of the year to date, All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley is a finely understated combination of memoir, lessons on the art of seeing, and a  glorious and very personal tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Capturing a transformative period in Bringley’s life, the book focuses on the months and years after his brother Tom’s untimely death, when poleaxed by grief, Bringley drops out of his relentless New York life and takes a job as a museum guard at the Met. Here, with a broken heart, he gets to just stand still awhile and let the art and life of the museum work its healing magic.

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Table for Two by Amor Towles

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Table for Two

A magnificent short story collection

Anyone wary of short stories should put their doubts to rest and dive into the utterly magnificent Table for Two by Amor Towles. I’ve been chuckling through his stories which range from a neurotic wife convinced her husband is having an affair to a Russian peasant turned opportunistic capitalist by the Russian revolution; from a high-strung Goldman Sachs banker suspicious of a fellow concert goer to the incompetent aspiring author whose skills at forging puts him on a new career path and many more. Once again, Towles’ superb storytelling skills shine.

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Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

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Let the Great World Spin

On edge in New York City

In August 1974, a tightrope walker crossed between the World Trade Center towers as police and pedestrians watched incredulously from below. It’s the starting point for Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, a novel which follows the lives of different New Yorkers, all living on the edge one way or another. Their lives intersect in unexpected ways that day in August, weaving together destinies and showing how we’re all connected. It’s as much a novel about New York as it is about New Yorkers and a moving love letter to a city which was just emerging from the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks when McCann wrote it.

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The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan

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The Long-Winded Lady

A captivating and stylish peek at bygone New York

An unearthed gem for lovers of the Big Apple, The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan is a gloriously evocative collection of vignettes of New York life between 1954 and 1981. Originally written for The New Yorker as a series of observational pieces, Brennan captures the city in a state of  flux, reporting from street scenes, hotel lobbies, and more often than not, the window table of an elegant bar. From here, as a wry and solitary observer and unashamed eavesdropper, Brennan gives us the lowdown on a city where it’s never too early to order a martini.

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Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

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Inheritance

Finding your genes

At the age of 54, author Dani Shapiro discovers that her father is not the man who raised her. The Ancestry.com genealogy test results show that not only is she fathered by someone else, but she also has a lot less Jewish DNA than she thought. Having been raised in an orthodox Jewish family, this raises all kinds of questions about identity and belonging. I was enthralled by Shapiro’s detective work as I joined her emotional rollercoaster to find out why, how and who. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro is a human story which raises some compelling ethical dilemmas and is well worth your time.

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Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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Leave the World Behind

Apocalypse in the Hamptons

Amanda and Clay – a successful, liberal New York couple – are staying in a smart rental summer house in the Hamptons with their kids. When the phone and internet connections go down and a black couple, Ruth and G.H., claiming to be the owners of the house, knock on the door asking for shelter, Amanda and Clay’s proclaimed tolerance is put to the test. Who is this couple? Can they be trusted? And why doesn’t the communications network function? Cyberattack? Terrorism? War? Nuclear accident? Catastrophe looms in Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, the most unsettling and frighteningly believable novel I’ve read in a long time.

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