Three Novels by Reliable Authors

Evensong     Stewart O’Nan     (2025)  This is the fourth book in which the novelist’s Pittsburgh-dwelling character Emily Maxwell has appeared, and for this appearance she’s part of an ensemble cast. Emily belongs to the Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of elderly women who help their circle of friends with the day-to-day challenges of aging—think rides to medical appointments and delivery of food packages. As I wrote in my review of 2019’s Henry, Himself (Henry being Emily’s late husband), “Somehow, novelist O’Nan is able to turn everyday events into drama that drives his narrative in a highly effective way. I haven’t yet figured out how he does this. It could be the naturalistic dialogue.” (Click here for my full post.) There’s no thrilling climax to the story in Evensong. Rather, there’s a placid and highly believable documentation of human kindness. The other two books in which you can learn more about Emily are Wish You Were Here (2002) and Emily, Alone (2011).

The Winds from Further West Alexander McCall Smith (2024) I’ve long been a devotee of three of McCall Smith’s book series:  The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (reviewed here), 44 Scotland Street (reviewed here), and The Sunday Philosophy Club (reviewed here). McCall Smith also publishes stand-alone novels, of which The Winds from Further West is one. In this book, Dr Neil Anderson is a thirty-something medical researcher in Edinburgh, and he’s a very nice guy. He unexpectedly gets into a messy academic controversy when a comment that he makes is misinterpreted by a student. At the same time, his relationship with his girlfriend ends. In frustration and sadness, he retreats to the island of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, to get his head straightened out. Mull is isolated and bucolic, with kindly inhabitants, and the retreat is successful. Like all of McCall Smith’s fiction, this book is low-key, focusing on the characters’ internal decision making as they weigh the right and wrong of situations. (Makes sense, since McCall Smith is a retired professor of medical ethics and law.) I did wonder if the emphasis on the unfair accusations of Neil’s student indicates that the author harbors right-wing opposition to “wokeism.” No—McCall Smith is a member of a center-left political party in Scotland, and throughout his fiction he espouses support for social welfare programs and environmental protections. Maybe he himself had a run-in with a student somewhere along the way!

Father of the Rain     Lily King (2010)  The character of Daley Amory recounts her relationship with her alcoholic and abusive father, starting at her eleventh birthday, when her parents are about to get divorced. Daley’s parents represent two different worldviews, which, historically, were colliding as the story begins in 1970s Massachusetts. Her father is a conservative, patriarchal, racist country-club member. Her mother is not. Over a period of about thirty years, Daley, who adores both her parents, repeatedly tries and fails to remove herself from her father’s destructive orbit. Lily King excels at portrayals of families in crisis, especially through dialogue, as noted in my previous posts about her writing. See my recent spotlight post on this author here.

Author Spotlight: Lily King

The American author Lily King writes about human emotions with great sensitivity. Here are brief reviews of four of her books—three novels and a collection of short stories—that I recommend.

Heart the Lover      Lily King     (2025)  In Part I of this novel, a young woman, a senior at an unnamed university somewhere in the eastern United States, befriends two brilliant male students, Sam and Yash, who nickname her “Jordan.” Her intellectual life is ignited—and her ambition to become a writer is fueled—by her many conversations with these two. Jordan’s romantic entanglement with Sam and Yash in turn is another matter. Parts II and III of the novel skip many years into the woman’s future, where the consequences of her decisions back in college are played out in very sad scenes. On the last page of the novel, there is one surprising line that links this story to King’s novel Writers and Lovers.  (I didn’t understand the title until the section of the novel that describes a card game that one of the characters invents: “Heart the Lover” is the king of hearts card. You can download instructions for this game at the author’s website.)

Writers and Lovers    Lily King     (2020)  Casey, a 31-year-old server at a restaurant in Harvard Square, is a woman with authorial ambitions. She lives frugally and spends every spare moment writing a novel. She also meets some pretty wacky boyfriends. As a former server myself, I loved the restaurant scenes.

Five Tuesdays in Winter     Lily King     (2021)  I usually prefer the expansiveness of the novel format, but each of these ten stories creates a believable universe of characters and life experiences. Settings range from New England to the North Sea, from the 1960s to the present.

The English Teacher     Lily King     (2005)  In 1979, Vida Avery is an extraordinarily talented member of the staff of a private school in New England and the single mother of 15-year-old Peter. She is also very troubled woman. As the novel opens, Vida is marrying Tom Belou, a widower with three children of his own. In a spare 242 pages, the novelist probes deeply into the dynamics of life in a blended family, but those adjustments pale beside the exploration of Vida’s deteriorating mental health. Do read this one, and prepare yourself for an unexpected denouement.   

Just Fiction

A Town Called Solace     Mary Lawson     (2021)  Step back in time to 1972, and head to a small town in northern Ontario, Canada, for a tender story of loss, loneliness, and hope, told from the perspectives of three characters: a hospitalized elderly woman, an eight-year-old girl whose older sister has run away, and a thirty-something man facing divorce and joblessness.

Five Tuesdays in Winter     Lily King     (2021)  I usually prefer the expansiveness of the novel format, but each of these ten stories creates a universe of characters and life experiences. Settings range from New England to the North Sea, from the 1960s to the present. See also my review of King’s novel Writers and Lovers. 

Crossroads     Jonathan Franzen     (2021)  In 1971-72 Chicago, middle-aged clergyman Russ Hildebrandt and his wife and four children come under the microscope as they struggle with faith, sex, drugs, Vietnam, and rock ‘n’ roll for 580 detail-heavy pages. This is classic Franzen, with unforgettable characters, and it’s the first book of a projected trilogy.

Small Things Like These     Claire Keegan     (2021)  With prose reminiscent of the early work of James Joyce, Keegan’s novella fictionalizes a piece of the history of the Irish “laundries,” where unwed pregnant women were enslaved by the Catholic Church until 1996. In rural Ireland at Christmastime in 1985, a middle-aged family man stumbles upon evidence of such abuse at a local convent.

Fresh Water for Flowers     Valérie Perrin     Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle     (2020)  This European bestseller is part mystery, part romance, part memento mori. Violette Toussaint, a cemetery keeper in a small town in Burgundy, provides informal grief counselling to mourners as she looks back on her own life and tries to fashion a future for herself. The translation is awkward at points, especially because of the British slang, but the meandering story is heartwarming.

Wish You Were Here     Jodi Picoult     (2021)  Are you ready for a novel set in New York City (and Galápagos) in 2020, right when the coronavirus pandemic breaks out? The societal details are all too familiar, but the story takes unexpected turns, yanking the reader along. The disjointedness of alternate realities reflects our times.

Pandemic Reads, Part Two

In my last post, I reviewed historical fiction and mysteries that I’ve read during the pandemic. I’d also like to recommend some non-mystery novels about contemporary life.

Monogamy    Sue Miller (2020) When the gregarious owner of an independent bookstore dies, his widow accidentally discovers his infidelity. Sue Miller explores the complex ties of marriage, family, friendship, and career with great subtlety.

Indelicacy    Amina Cain (2020) This short novel (almost a novella) tells the story of a young woman who is lifted out of poverty by marriage to a wealthy man. Although it seems that her dreams of having the leisure to become a writer have come true, the reality of her everyday life is quite different from her expectations.

Writers and Lovers    Lily King (2020) And here’s another woman with authorial ambitions: Casey, a 31-year-old server at a restaurant in Harvard Square who lives frugally and spends every spare moment writing a novel. She also meets some pretty wacky boyfriends. As a former server myself, I loved the restaurant scenes.

Christmas in Austin    Benjamin Markovits (2019) Three generations of the Essinger family gather in Texas for the holidays, and all the usual Christmas traditions and stresses become manifest. You may find yourself identifying with one of the fourteen members of this ensemble cast. (This book is a sequel to A Weekend in New York but stands alone just fine.)

28 Summers    Erin Hilderbrand (2020) For chick lit escapism, it doesn’t get better than Erin Hilderbrand. This offering borrows its structure from Bernard Slade’s Same Time, Next Year, with the two lovers meeting secretly each summer, starting in 1993, on Hilderbrand’s beloved Nantucket Island. You can take lots of breezy seaside vacations with them. I’ve also reviewed Hilderbrand’s Summer of ‘69.

The Geometry of Holding Hands    Alexander McCall Smith (2020)

This 13th entry in the Isabel Dalhousie series finds the Edinburgh-based philosopher again trying to solve ethical questions among her friends and family, all the while editing an academic journal. The interactions of Isabel and her husband, Jamie, are, as usual, unabashedly romantic. Check out my review of the series as a whole and of the 12th entry specifically.