A new novel by Ann Patchett is always cause for celebration. The Nashville author and bookstore owner is unparalleled in her gift for identifying a nuanced aspect of human nature and holding it up to the light to examine it in all its many permutations.
Following her 2023 Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel “Tom Lake,” her new book, “Whistler,” (HarperCollins, $30) focuses on the brief but indelible relationship between a young girl and her stepfather, examining it through the prism of time when they unexpectedly reunite many years later.
Daphne Fuller is a 50-something English teacher at a girls prep school living in a suburb outside Manhattan. She and her older husband, Jonathan, a newly retired hospital administrator who’s at a loss for what to do with himself now that he’s unemployed, are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art when they encounter Eddie Triplett. The 76-year-old editor at Random House was the second of three husbands to Daphne’s mother.
Credit: HarperCollins
Credit: HarperCollins
Until their chance meeting, Daphne and Eddie hadn’t seen each other in more than 40 years after they were involved in a car accident that triggered Eddie’s banishment from the family. Having harbored guilt ever since over her perceived role in Eddie’s departure, Daphne reexamines the events surrounding the accident and the days that followed. As she reconnects with the man who was the closest thing she ever had to a father figure, Daphne gleans a new understanding of what transpired in her family four decades earlier.
A soul-soothing study of familial relationships and the serendipitous nature of love, “Whistler” is a contemplative antidote to the summer’s fluffier beach reads. Here are four more literary novels by Southern writers to consider this season.
Credit: One World
Credit: One World
North Carolina native De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s third novel is a literary thriller set in the small town of Fervent in New York’s Hudson Valley. When convicted murderers James and Ella White are exonerated and released from prison in 1982, the white couple go home to a primarily Black neighborhood that does not welcome them. Most unsettled by their return is Sylvia Upshaw. Having vocalized her disapproval of the Whites’ adoption of a Black child before they were jailed, Sylvia shares a secret with the child after the couple’s incarceration that results in the boy’s death. Tensions in the community come to a boil when another murder occurs. (One World, $28)
Credit: Bloomsbury
Credit: Bloomsbury
Joyce Carol Oates calls Mississippi native Hallie Elizabeth Newton’s dark, disturbing novel “an astonishing debut as mesmerizing as it is unnerving.” Taking place during 24 hours in 2014 New York City, this stream-of-consciousness novel is told from the POV of a self-absorbed, image-obsessed and increasingly unhinged woman determined to find someone to kill her before her next SoulCycle class. For fans of dark satire and potentially unlikable main characters. (Bloomsbury, $26.99)
Credit: Mariner Books
Credit: Mariner Books
Christina Baker Kline spins a fictional account of the lives of real-life conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker, who were sold to a circus by their mother when they were young and went on to become successful plantation owners in 19th century North Carolina. Kline’s story is told from the perspective of Sarah Yates, one of two sisters who marry the brothers and bear 21 children between them. Beyond the peculiarities of their situation and the day-to-day challenges the foursome endure, the novel explores tensions surrounding race, class and gender as the country teeters on the brink of the Civil War. (Mariner Books, $30)
Credit: Harper Via
Credit: Harper Via
Rohit is a professor at Delhi University in modern-day India who lives in a bubble of like-minded queer academics in this new novel by Aruni Kashyap, an associate professor at the University of Georgia and director of the creative writing program. Obsessed by an unrequited love, Rohit seeks solace in relationships with other men. Meanwhile, religious and ethnic unrest mounts, to which Rohit remains oblivious until the growing movement of conservative extremism threatens his insulated world. (Harper Via, $20.99)
Suzanne Van Atten is a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
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