MIND-BLOWINGLY BEAUTIFUL, INVENTIVE novel by Gayl Jones follows the friendship of two talented Black women—one a writer, one a visual artist—through their travels, their relationships, their searches for success and self-realization. SOLID A

THE BIRDCATCHER
Beacon Press
2022

AN EXTENDED KIOWA/COMANCHE/MEXICAN FAMILY finds ways to mend its rifts and build a future in this extraordinary, engrossing novel. Told in a chorus of unforgettable voices, it spins a powerful story of Indigenous life in Oklahoma. SOLID A

CALLING FOR A BLANKET DANCE
Algonquin Books
2022

DAZZLING SATIRE OF AMERICAN publishing, of the deep legacy of racism, but also of the gulf between Africans and African-Americans, and above all of the profound brutalities of the Biafran War. And yet, the book’s most central lesson is one of love. SOLID A

NEW YORK, MY VILLAGE
W. W. Norton & Company
2021

A FAMILY’S DISINTEGRATION MIRRORS the collapse of the South African apartheid regime under which they had prospered. Passionately insightful prose frames a brilliant kaleidoscope of characters and perspectives. SOLID A

THE PROMISE
Europa Editions
2021

THE GHOSTS THAT HAUNTED MESOPOTAMIA: British Museum curator Irving Finkel’s latest is a delightful, revelatory survey of ancient Mesopotamian beliefs about ghosts and the afterlife. Beautiful, clear prose on a fascinating topic. SOLID A

THE FIRST GHOSTS
Hodder & Stoughton
2021

HARLEM AT A CROSSROADS, a man poised between the straight and narrow and the shady side hustle, the 1950s yielding to the 1960s: Colson Whitehead’s latest paints a vivid picture of a world in transition with all the power of Dickens or Ellison. SOLID A

HARLEM SHUFFLE
Doubleday
2021

POWERFUL, TENSE, WITTY novel from the incomparable Percival Everett combines forms from the detective thriller to the Southern grotesque to classic horror to tell a horrifying, necessary story about race in the United States. SOLID A

THE TREES
Graywolf Press
2021

A PASSIONATE HISTORY OF ACT UP New York documents the AIDS activist group’s true range and power. It’s an extraordinary achievement in public history—a symphony of voices honoring deep courage and clarity. SOLID A

LET THE RECORD SHOW
Farrar
2021

A SECOND EPIC, PICARESQUE SATIRE from Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen follows his nameless Vietnamese protagonist to Paris, where he is embroiled in underworld as well as political dangers. Glorious, orotund, metaphysical, witty. SOLID A

THE COMMITTED
Grove Press
2021

WILDLY INVENTIVE NOVEL combines vivid, evocative realism with stunningly bizarre situations to great satiric effect. It’s the Candide of the 21st century, if Voltaire had been great at details and dialogue. SOLID A

MY YEAR ABROAD
Riverhead Books
2021