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Death in Her Hands: A Novel
Par Ottessa Moshfegh. 2020
"[An] intricate and unsettling new novel . . . Death in Her Hands is not a murder mystery, nor is…
it really a story about self-deception or the perils of escapism. Rather, it's a haunting meditation on the nature and meaning of art."-Kevin Power, The New YorkerFrom one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods.While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one.Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one.A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.In the Night of Time: A Novel
Par Antonio Muñoz Molina. 2012
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year: A &“hypnotic&” novel of the Spanish Civil War and one man&’s quest…
to escape it (Colm Tóibín, The New York Review of Books). October 1936. Spanish architect Ignacio Abel arrives at Penn Station, the final stop on his journey from war-torn Madrid, where he has left behind his wife and children, abandoning them to uncertainty. Crossing the fragile borders of Europe, Ignacio reflects on months of fratricidal conflict in his embattled country, his transformation from a bricklayer&’s son to a respected bourgeois husband and professional, and the all-consuming love affair with an American woman that forever altered his life. Winner of the 2012 Prix Méditerranée Étranger and hailed as a masterpiece, In the Night of Time is a sweeping, grand novel and an indelible portrait of a shattered society, written by one of Spain&’s most important contemporary novelists. &“Labyrinthine and spellbinding . . . One of the most eloquent monuments to the Spanish Civil War ever to be raised in fiction.&” —The Washington Post, &“The Top 50 Fiction Books for 2014&” &“An astonishingly vivid narrative that unfolds with hypnotic intensity by means of the constant interweaving of time and memory . . . Tolstoyan in its scale, emotional intensity and intellectual honesty.&” —The Economist &“Epic . . . Intoxicating prose.&” —Entertainment Weekly &“A War and Peace for the Spanish Civil War.&” —Publishers WeeklyThe Love Letter: A Novel
Par Cathleen Schine. 1994
A bookseller is obsessed with a mysterious love note in the New York Times–bestselling author&’s &“sophisticated and witty valentine of…
a novel&” (People). Intelligent, sexy, and fortyish, Helen MacFarquhar is a woman in control of her life and everyone in it—until an anonymous love letter falls into her hands one summer morning. Helen has been leading a blissful existence as the proprietor of a small bookstore in a quaint New England seaside town. She beguiles her customers into buying the titles she recommends, and flirts shamelessly with nearly every one of the town&’s eccentric residents. But Helen&’s self-confidence falters when the love letter arrives in her mail. &“How do you fall in love?&” the letter asks, and the question becomes Helen&’s obsession, in this &“smart, moving, and funny&” (Detroit Free Press) story by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Three Weissmanns of Westport and They May Not Mean To, But They Do.Miss Burma: A Novel
Par Charmaine Craig. 2018
&“Craig wields powerful and vivid prose to illuminate a country and a family trapped not only by war and revolution,…
but also by desire and loss.&” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Miss Burma tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of Benny and Khin, husband and wife, and their daughter Louisa. After attending school in Calcutta, Benny settles in Rangoon, then part of the British Empire, and falls in love with Khin, a woman who is part of a long-persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. World War II comes to Southeast Asia, and Benny and Khin must go into hiding in the eastern part of the country during the Japanese occupation, beginning a journey that will lead them to change the country&’s history. Years later, Benny and Khin&’s eldest child, Louisa, has a danger-filled, tempestuous childhood and reaches prominence as Burma&’s first beauty queen soon before the country falls to dictatorship. As Louisa navigates her newfound fame, she is forced to reckon with her family&’s past, the West&’s ongoing covert dealings in her country, and her own loyalty to the cause of the Karen people. Based on the story of the author&’s mother and grandparents, Miss Burma is a captivating portrait of how modern Burma came to be and of the ordinary people swept up in the struggle for self-determination and freedom. &“At once beautiful and heartbreaking . . . An incredible family saga.&” —Refinery29 &“Miss Burma charts both a political history and a deeply personal one—and of those incendiary moments when private and public motivations overlap.&” —Los Angeles TimesGood Neighbors: A Novel
Par Sarah Langan. 2021
Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty&’s enthralling dissection of suburbia meets Shirley Jackson&’s creeping dread in this &“wickedly funny, unnerving puzzle…
box of a novel&” (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will) about the downward spiral of a Long Island community after a tragedy exposes its residents&’ depths of deception.Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world. But menace skulks among this exclusive enclave. When the Wilde family arrive, they trigger their neighbors&’ worst fears. Dad Arlo&’s a gruff has-been rock star with track marks. Mom Gertie&’s got a thick Brooklyn accent, with high heels and tube tops to match. Their weird kids cuss like sailors. They don&’t fit with the way Maple Street sees itself. Maple Street&’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder—a lonely professor repressing a dark past—initially welcomed Gertie, but relations plummeted during one summer evening, when the new best friends shared too much, too soon. By the time the story opens, the Wildes are outcasts. As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea&’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes. Suddenly, it is one mom&’s word against the other&’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood. Riveting and ruthless, Good Neighbors is &“a chilling, compulsively readable novel that looks toward the future in order to help us understand how we live now&” (Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here).Knitting: A Novel
Par Anne Bartlett. 2006
&“In the tradition of Anita Brookner and Barbara Pym, Anne Bartlett has written a sly, stirring look at women&’s lives&”…
(Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion). Sandra, a rigid academic, is struggling to navigate the world after losing her husband to cancer. Martha, a self-taught textile artist with her own secret store of grief, spends her days knitting elaborate projects charged with personal meaning. After a chance meeting sparks a friendship between these two very different women, they begin to collaborate—leading to surprising events that will help heal them both, in a novel of &“subtle beauty&” (The Washington Post). &“A moving story about true love and haunting grief.&” —Adriana Trigiani &“A wonderful tale . . . deeply satisfying.&” —Connie May Fowler &“An experience as sensual and mystical as plunging your hands into skeins of wool and color . . . A joyful narrative of creating and connecting.&” —Sena Jeter NaslundA Clean Heart: A Novel
Par John Rosengren. 2020
A Novel of Redemption from Addiction and a Broken Family“A Clean Heart picks at the knot of addiction and recovery insistently…
and with a wholesomeness intriguingly at odds with its subject. I enjoyed this book.” –Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Over ArtistCarter Kirchner struggles to stay sane and sober as a counselor at Six West, an adolescent drug treatment center run by Sister Mary Xavier, a hard-drinking nun with an MBA. The young Kirchner is caught between Sister Mary’s plan to rescue the center by reforming a hard-case kid and the dysfunctional staff’s clumsy plan to intervene on their boss’s drinking. Meanwhile, Carter’s mother?who never forgave him for giving up a promising hockey career to treat his own addiction?lands in the hospital with an advanced case of cirrhosis. Before Carter can help the young addict commissioned to his care or safely navigate the staff’s dysfunctional intervention effort, he must rescue himself from his family’s broken past.A Clean Heart is a novel by John Rosengren, a writer and recent nominee for a Pulitzer Prize who knows the territory of addiction. He went through treatment at age 17 and has been clean and sober since 1981. He also worked in adolescent treatment centers when he was younger. John Rosengren’s articles have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The Atlantic, New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated, and Utne Reader.If you are a fan of the 2018 films Ben is Back or David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy or have read addiction memoirs such as If You Love Me or We All Fall Down, you will love reading John Rosengren’s A Clean Heart.July, July
Par Tim O'Brien. 2002
A &“perceptive, affectionate, and often very funny&” novel about old college friends at a thirty-year reunion, by the author of…
The Things They Carried (Boston Herald). From a National Book Award winner who&’s been called &“the best American writer of his generation&” (San Francisco Examiner), July, July tells the story of ten old friends who attended Darton Hall College together back in 1969, and now reunite for a summer weekend of dancing, drinking, flirting, reminiscing—and regretting. The three decades since graduation have brought marriage and divorce, children and careers, hopes deferred and replaced. This witty, heart-rending novel about men and women who came into adulthood at a moment when American ideals and innocence began to fade, a New York Times Notable Book, is &“deeply satisfying&” (O, the Oprah Magazine) and &“almost impossible to put down&” (Austin American-Statesman). &“A symphony of American life.&” —All Things Considered, NPRBedlam Burning
Par Geoff Nicholson. 2002
The acclaimed author of Bleeding London spins a yarn of academia, lunacy, and the blurry lines between them in this…
Whitbread Prize–finalist novel. It all starts at Cambridge University, where Dr. John Bentley throws his book burning parties—&“a little active, symbolic literary criticism&”—in which guests are invited to state their grudges against their least favorite books, and then toss them into a fire. It is at one such party that the brilliant but sheepish Gregory Collins meets Mike Smith, a handsome classmate. They become fast friends. And then their friendship takes a decidedly strange turn. When Gregory&’s first novel, The Wax Man, is published, he convinces Mike to take his place on the book jacket. Now Mike is the one invited to be a writer-in-residence at an insane asylum run by Dr. Eric Kincaid, whose obscure therapeutic philosophy centers on the soothing powers of literature. When Mike compiles a book of the inmates&’ writings, and it becomes a literary success, this comedy of errors threatens to take another, far darker turn. &“Completely addictive and very, very funny. Great.&” —Jonathan Lethem, author of A Gambler&’s Anatomy &“Donald Westlake meets Ken Kesey in this . . . compulsively good read.&” —Library JournalCahokia Jazz: A Novel
Par Francis Spufford. 2023
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian and The Financial Times From &“one of the most original…
minds in contemporary literature&” (Nick Hornby) the bestselling and award-winning author of Golden Hill delivers a noirish detective novel set in the 1920s that reimagines how American history would be different if, instead of being decimated, indigenous populations had thrived.Like his earlier novel Golden Hill, Francis Spufford&’s Cahokia Jazz inhabits a different version of America, now through the lens of a subtly altered 1920s—a fully imagined world full of fog, cigarette smoke, dubious motives, danger, dark deeds. And in the main character of Joe Barrow, we have a hero of truly epic proportions, a troubled soul to fall in love with as you are swept along by a propulsive and brilliantly twisty plot. On a snowy night at the end of winter, Barrow and his partner find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. Down below, streetcar bells ring, factory whistles blow, Americans drink in speakeasies and dance to the tempo of modern times. But this is Cahokia, the ancient indigenous city beside the Mississippi living on as a teeming industrial metropolis, filled with people of every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that corpse on the roof will spark a week of drama in which this altered world will spill its secrets and be brought, against a soundtrack of jazz clarinets and wailing streetcars, either to destruction or rebirth.Set for Life: A Novel
Par Andrew Ewell. 2024
A wryly funny and moving novel that captures the complexities of marriage, art, friendship, and the fictions we create in…
order to become the people we wish to be.A creative writing professor at a third-tier college in upstate New York is on his way home from a summer fellowship in France, where he&’s spent the last three months loafing around Bordeaux, tasting the many varieties of French wine at his disposal, and doing just about anything but actually working on his long overdue novel. A stopover in Brooklyn to see his and his wife&’s closest friends—John, a jaded poet-turned-lawyer with a dubious moral compass, and Sophie, a once-promising fiction writer with a complicated past and a mysterious allure—causes further trouble when he and Sophie wind up sleeping together while John is out serenading Brooklyn coeds with poems instead of preparing legal briefs. But instead of succumbing to his failures as a teacher, writer, and husband, an odd freedom begins to bubble up. Could a love affair be the answer he&’s been searching for? Could it offer the escape he needs from the department chair, Chet Bland, who&’s been breathing down his neck? Relief from the gossip of colleagues and generational tension with students? Respite from embarrassment over his wife, Debra Crawford, and her meteoric rise as a novelist? His escapades might even make the perfect raw material for an absolutely devastating novel, which would earn him tenure, wealth, and celebrity—everything he needs to be set for life. If only he could be the one to write it. A brilliant case of art imitating life, Andrew Ewell&’s gem of a debut is a hilarious and poignant tour de force that asks who owns whose story, skewers the fictions created from our lives and others&’, and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase &“publish or perish.&”The Road from Belhaven: A novel
Par Margot Livesey. 2024
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a novel about a young woman whose…
gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late-nineteenth-century Scotland&“Bewitching and seductive.&” —Rebecca Makkai, author of I Have Some Questions for You • &“A treasure: a writer who understands the magic and mysteries of the human soul." —Chris Bohjalian, author of Hour of the Witch • &“This book is a cold, clear, perfect lake." —Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster WildsGrowing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn&’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her &“pictures&” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but she can seldom change it.Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her. Why have the adults around her not revealed that the touch of a hand can change everything? After following Louis to Glasgow, though, she learns the limits of his devotion. Faced with a seemingly impossible choice, she makes a terrible mistake. But her second sight may allow her a second chance.Luminous and transporting, The Road from Belhaven once again displays &“the marvelous control of a writer who conjures equally well the tangible, sensory world . . . and the mysteries, stranger and wilder, that flicker at the border of that world.&” —The Boston GlobeAlphabetical Diaries
Par Sheila Heti. 2024
An enthralling work from one of our greatest literary innovators, shortlisted for the Giller and winner of the GG for…
Fiction.A little over a decade ago, Sheila Heti—the award-winning author of a string of modern classics including How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood, and Pure Colour—began looking back at the diaries she'd kept over the previous ten years, searching for signs of deeper change inside herself. She loaded all 500,000 words of her journals into Microsoft Excel, to order the sentences alphabetically and seek out patterns and repetitions. How many times had she written, &“I hate him,&” for example? With the sentences untethered from the narrative of her diaries, she started to see herself—and the Self—in a new way: as something quite solid, anchored by shockingly few characteristic preoccupations. Returning to the project over the years, something more universal and novelistic emerged. Alphabetical Diaries is the sublime and probing result—one that rises to the heights of artistry and insight for which Heti is rightfully acclaimed.Corey Fah Does Social Mobility: A Novel
Par Isabel Waidner. 2023
A novel that celebrates radical queer survival and gleefully takes a hammer to false notions of successThis is the story…
of Corey Fah, a writer who has hit the literary jackpot: their novel has just won the prize for the Fictionalization of Social Evils. But the actual trophy, and with it the funds, hovers peskily out of reach.Neon-beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with their partner Drew and eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular quest through their childhood in the Forest and an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, along with wormholes and time loops, Corey learns—the hard way—the difference between a prize and a gift.Following the Goldsmiths Prize–winning Sterling Karat Gold, Isabel Waidner’s bold and buoyant new novel is about coming into one’s own, the labor of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself, and what ensues when a large amount of cultural capital is suddenly deposited in a place it has never been before.Self-Portraits: Stories
Par Osamu Dazai. 2024
Bringing together novelist Osamu Dazai’s best autobiographical shorts in a single, slim volume, Self-Portraits shows the legendary writer at his best—and…
worst “Art dies the moment it acquires authority.” So said Japan’s quintessential rebel writer Osamu Dazai, who, disgusted with the hypocrisy of every kind of establishment, from the nation’s obsolete aristocracy to its posturing, warmongering generals, went his own way, even when that meant his death—and the death of others. Faced with pressure to conform, he declared his individuality to the world—in all its self-involved, self-conscious, and self-hating glory. “Art,” he wrote, “is ‘I.’” In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazai’s life mirrored his art, and vice versa, as the writer/narrator falls from grace, rises to fame, and falls again. Addiction, debt, shame, and despair dogged Dazai until his self-inflicted death, and yet despite all the lies and deception he resorted to in life, there is an almost fanatical honesty to his writing. And that has made him a hero to generations of readers who see laid bare, in his works, the painful, impossible contradictions inherent in the universal commandment of social life—fit in and do as you are told—as well as the possibility, however desperate, of defiance. Long out of print, these stories will be a revelation to the legions of new fans of No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, and The Flowers of Buffoonery.Float Up, Sing Down
Par Laird Hunt. 2024
From National Book Award Finalist Laird Hunt, a masterful collection of interwoven stories capturing one summer's day in Reagan-era Indiana.Candy…
Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della Dorner told her mother she was going to Milky Freeze, but that's not where she's really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed.Float Up, Sing Down is the story of a single day. But in that day, how much teeming life! The residents of this rural town have their routines, their preferences, their joys, grudges, and regrets. The old-timers savor past triumphs, cast back to lives circumscribed and defined by the World Wars, wonder what might have been. Youngsters covet cars, karate moves, kissing; they writhe in the first blushes of love or pain or independence. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love, French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride the back roads.Each of the fourteen stories of Float Up, Sing Down follows one character's 'day-in-the-life' in one of Hunt's most beloved and enduring landscapes. As the book unfolds these lives echo and glance off of one another with elegance and warmth, a tenderness born of strength. In the tradition of Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Elizabeth Strout, and Edward P. Jones, this is a symphony of souls, a masterful portrait of both loneliness and community by one of our great limners of American experience.The Resort: A Novel
Par Sara Ochs. 2024
"A deadly, dangerous, beautiful nightmare." — Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the EndFor readers…
of Rachel Hawkins and We Were Never Here comes a searing vacation thriller set on a remote island in Thailand following two mysterious women, a charismatic group of expats, and the one murder poised to bring their paradise crashing down.Welcome to paradise. We hope you survive your stay...There are three rules to follow during a vacation at the famous Koh Sang Resort1 – Leave the past behind.When Cass sets foot on the coast of Thailand's world-famous party island, she's searching for an escape. With dark secrets following her every move, Koh Sang becomes the perfect place to hide.2 - Always be careful of who you trust.Now, years later, Cass is a local dive instructor alongside the Permanents, a group of expats who have claimed the island as their own. The Permanents don't linger on who they were before the island. Simply because, like Cass, they all have something to outrun.3 – If someone discovers who you really are, run.But suddenly, a dive student is found dead and paradise comes crashing down. Because this isn't the first mysterious death on the island, and it won't be the last. Someone knows who Cass is and they're ready to make sure justice is finally served.Float Up, Sing Down
Par Laird Hunt. 2024
From National Book Award Finalist Laird Hunt, a masterful collection of interwoven stories capturing one summer's day in Reagan-era Indiana.Candy…
Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della Dorner told her mother she was going to Milky Freeze, but that's not where she's really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed.Float Up, Sing Down is the story of a single day. But in that day, how much teeming life! The residents of this rural town have their routines, their preferences, their joys, grudges, and regrets. The old-timers savor past triumphs, cast back to lives circumscribed and defined by the World Wars, wonder what might have been. Youngsters covet cars, karate moves, kissing; they writhe in the first blushes of love or pain or independence. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love, French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride the back roads.Each of the fourteen stories of Float Up, Sing Down follows one character's 'day-in-the-life' in one of Hunt's most beloved and enduring landscapes. As the book unfolds these lives echo and glance off of one another with elegance and warmth, a tenderness born of strength. In the tradition of Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Elizabeth Strout, and Edward P. Jones, this is a symphony of souls, a masterful portrait of both loneliness and community by one of our great limners of American experience.Dixon, Descending: A Novel
Par Karen Outen. 2024
A powerful, heart-wrenching debut novel about ambition, survival, and our responsibility toward one another Dixon was once an Olympic-level runner.…
But he missed the team by two-tenths of a second, and ever since that pain decades ago, he hasn&’t allowed a goal to consume him. But when his charming older brother, Nate, suggests that they attempt to be the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, Dixon can&’t refuse. The brothers are determined to prove something—to themselves and to each other. Dixon interrupts his orderly life as a school psychologist, leaving behind disapproving friends, family, and one particularly fragile student, Marcus. Once on the mountain, they are met with extreme weather conditions, oxygen deprivation, and precarious terrain. But as much as they&’ve prepared for this, Mt. Everest is always fickle. And in one devastating moment, Dixon&’s world is upended. Dixon returns home and attempts to resume his job, but things have shifted: for him and for the students he left behind when he chose Mt. Everest. Ultimately, Dixon must confront the truth of what happened on the mountain and come to terms with who can and cannot be saved. DIXON, DESCENDING offers us a captivating, shattering portrait of the ways we&’re reshaped by our decisions—and what it takes to angle ourselves, once again, toward hope.The Summer Without Men: A Novel
Par Siri Hustvedt. 2011
FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED'An astoundingly joyful read . . . a book that shines with…
intellectual curiosity and emotional integrity' Guardian'By turns funny, moving and erudite, playfully reminding us of a contemporary Jane Austen' Daily MailAfter Mia Fredricksen's husband of thirty years asks for a pause - so he can indulge his infatuation with a young French colleague - she cracks up (briefly), rages (deeply), then decamps to her prairie childhood home.There, gradually, she is drawn into the lives of those around her: her mother's circle of feisty widows; the young woman next door; and the diabolical teenage girls in her poetry class. By the end of the summer without men, Mia knows what's worth fighting for - and on whose terms. Provocative, mordant, and fiercely intelligent, this is a gloriously vivacious tragi-comedy about women and girls, love and marriage, and the age-old war between the sexes.A rich and intelligent meditation on female identity, written in beguiling lyrical prose . . . heady and intoxicating' Sunday TimesPRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie'One of our finest novelists' Oliver Sacks'Reading a Hustvedt novel is like consuming the best of David Lynch' Financial Times'Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt' Washington Post