“The Marriage Portrait,” by Maggie O’Farrell. (Knopf, $28.)
Following her award-winning “Hamnet,” O’Farrell once again delves into 16th-century history, on this occasion taking her reader into Renaissance Italy to tell the tale of a young duchess. Lucrezia is taken to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso, the ruler of Ferrara. As she sits down to dinner with him, it dawns on her that he plans to kill her. Flitting backward and forward in time and articulating Lucrezia’s thoughts, dreams and fears, the novel brilliantly and exquisitely maps the course of her life and her efforts to survive.
“The Last White Man,” by Mohsin Hamid. (Riverhead Books, $26.)
For his fifth novel, Mohsin Hamid attempts something bold and radically different. Part original allegory, part reinterpretation of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” “The Last White Man” opens with Anders waking one morning to find that his skin has turned dark. As he waits for an “undoing,” he notices everyone around him undergoing the same transformation — and civil unrest breaking out. A timely and provocative exploration of race, identity and belonging.
“Nightcrawling,” by Leila Mottley. (Knopf, $28.)
Set in Mottley’s native Oakland, Calif., and inspired by a true crime and a shocking scandal, this gritty, devastating yet utterly compelling first novel is narrated by Kiara, a young Black woman who resorts to desperate measures to survive by taking to the streets after dark. “It’s just a body,” she keeps telling herself. Eventually she is given the opportunity to testify against corrupt police officers. But will her lone voice be heard? A tale of sexual exploitation and the pursuit of justice, once it takes hold it doesn’t let go.
“Foster,” by Claire Keegan. (Grove Press, $20.)
The unnamed narrator of Keegan’s tender and luminous novella is a young Irish girl who one summer is sent by her parents to stay with unknown relatives — “two old forgeries” — on their Wexford farm. Initially out of her comfort zone, she soon adapts to the rhythms of her new life, forms a tight bond with her guardians and gets her first real taste of care and affection. But in this idyll, pain is still keenly felt from a past tragedy. A slender book yet one filled with wisdom, insight and raw beauty.
“Best of Friends,” by Kamila Shamsie. (Riverhead Books, $27.)
At the outset of Shamsie’s seventh novel, Maryam and Zahra are 14-year-old girls navigating teenage life in Karachi in 1988. One night after a party, a fateful incident disrupts their carefree world. Thirty years later they are successful women in London who find that their friendship is tested by two blasts from the past. The author’s sharply drawn characters with their marked differences and “shared subtexts” keep the reader fully absorbed.
“Lucy by the Sea,” by Elizabeth Strout. (Random House, $28.)
Strout’s beloved heroine Lucy Barton is off with her ex-husband William to Maine again, this time to take refuge in a beach house as the pandemic spreads. Weeks turn into months, during which she tries to make sense of the unreality and uncertainty of lockdown while sifting memories, reflecting on the state of her nation and acknowledging the “strange compatibility” taking shape between her and William. Lucy’s fourth outing is a moving and enriching delight.
“How High We Go in the Dark,” by Sequoia Nagamatsu. (William Morrow, $27.99.)
Composed of more than a dozen segments, each narrated by a different character, and straddling various genres, Nagamatsu’s fiercely intelligent debut charts the effects of a global pandemic — the Arctic Plague — on future generations. Despite the succession of brave new worlds and alternate realities with their funerary skyscrapers and euthanasia theme parks, robo-dogs and talking pigs, the book never loses sight of the human factor. Mind-bendingly speculative but at the same time frighteningly real.
“Glory,” by NoViolet Bulawayo. (Viking, $27.)
A spark of hope flickers in the animal kingdom of Jidada when its leader, the Old Horse, is ousted in a coup after 40 years of autocratic misrule. But optimism is tragically cut short, and when a goat called Destiny trots back from exile, she takes stock of the fresh waves of turmoil engulfing her land. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Bulawayo’s second novel is a trenchant political satire on upheavals in her native Zimbabwe.
“The Rabbit Hutch,” by Tess Gunty. (Knopf, $28.)
The title of Gunty’s accomplished debut — winner of the 2022 National Book Award — is the nickname of La Lapinière, a rundown, low-cost housing complex in rust-belt Indiana. The novel tracks the aspirations, frustrations and disappointments of a ragtag group of residents one hot summer. Some yearn to escape and start again, others merely to connect and belong. One character emerges as a forceful presence: the otherworldly Blandine, who finds herself granted an unexpected way out.
“If I Survive You,” by Jonathan Escoffery. (MCD, $27.)
Escoffery’s eight linked stories center upon the mixed fortunes of a Jamaican immigrant family living — or more typically surviving — in Miami. Trelawney hits rock bottom and has to clamber back up. His brother, Delano, pursues a madcap money-making scheme as a hurricane approaches. And their cousin Cukie tries to obtain money from the father who abandoned him. These witty, punchy tales highlight the struggle of fitting in and getting by.
“Groundskeeping,” by Lee Cole. (Knopf, $28.)
Owen, an aspiring writer, returns to Kentucky in 2016. He takes a job as a groundskeeper at a private college and in exchange is able to attend a writing workshop. There he meets, and falls for, writer-in-residence Alma, a daughter of Bosnian immigrants. Cole’s stunning debut traces the blossoming romance of two people “standing outside of everything” while simultaneously offering a clear-eyed study of class differences in a divided America.
“A Tidy Ending,” by Joanna Cannon. (Scribner, $26.99.)
Linda spends her days in a world of suburban drudgery, cleaning up after her wastrel husband and dancing to the tune of her controlling mother. Things get exciting when she befriends, and emulates, the glamorous Rebecca — and when it becomes clear that a serial killer is on the loose. Cannon’s gloriously sinister and ingenious mystery boasts an unreliable narrator with a quirky outlook (“I’d overfed my mind with other people’s lives and my head had developed indigestion”), blackly comic set-pieces and jaw-dropping twists.
