I know there are readers out there who stick to the classics, or to books that are at least 20 years old and have stood the test of time.
And I get it. If you only have so much time on this Earth to read, you want to be sure what you’re reading is worth your time. Sticking to the classics sort of ensures this. But if part of the point of literature is to explore and try to understand the human condition, brand new books have something to offer us on what exactly it’s like to live right now in this exact time and space. A few books recently have done this spectacularly well and are not to be missed.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is not always an easy read, but it becomes increasingly immersive and engrossing as it goes along. It’s the story of the Fletchers, a family on Long Island that owns a dying styrofoam factory and whose patriarch was once kidnapped and returned home after the ransom was paid. Decades later, we meet each of his children in turn, and all the myriad ways the kidnapping and the family wealth has messed them up. How does the trauma of the parents affect the children? How does growing up wealthy affect a person’s identity and how they figure out their purpose in life? What is the family’s responsibility to the community and the people who worked for them? Brodesser-Akner goes deep into the lives of the three children, with compassion and humor, to attempt to answer some of these questions.
Margo, the main character of Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe, begins the novel as a naive young woman accidentally knocked up after having an affair with her English professor at the community college she attends. How does a young person today raise a child on her own? How does she make money, support herself and her child, when there are no resources available to her? Margo might seem to make questionable choices, but what I loved about this book is that it humanizes types of people we might be prone to looking down upon, particularly the poor, single, white mother. Margo is also clever, resourceful, funny, warm, and a great mom. Her path to figuring out her life — with the help of her estranged father, a terrific character who was once a WWE wrestler — is an enjoyable ride that gave me insight into a younger generation’s relationship with technology, relationships, and careers.
In Halle Butler’s Banal Nightmare, a young woman abruptly ends a long-term relationship and returns to her hometown and all of her old friends. Or “friends.” No one actually likes each other anymore. There is a vicious honesty to this book that will both delight and astound. The main character’s anxieties get in her way at every turn. She overthinks everything, can’t talk to people and then is mean to people at parties and becomes full of regret. And she’s not the only one. Everyone is a bit delusional; everyone is a bit mean-spirited; no one has their act together — and it’s hilarious. What is it like for this
millennial generation that feels like the world is too much? How do they make connections with
one another and forge relationships?
Whether you come to these books to feel less alone or to try to understand how someone else lives, you won’t be disappointed, and you’ll walk away with a bit more of that thing that reading delivers best: empathy.
Hannah Harlow is owner of The Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Beverly Farms. Harlow writes semi-regular recommendations for our readers. See more of what she recommends reading at thecricket.com.
