Among the fiction titles this month, The Disappearers by Marlon James, Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel, and Switzy by Emma Cline stand out as some of the most highly reviewed.
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1. The Disappearers by Marlon James
(Riverhead)
17 Rave reviews • 4 Positive • 2 Mixed
Discover a profile of Marlon James here
“A harrowing, hilarious, magnificent novel that will endure the test of time … He forges a distinctive literary tongue, bold yet tender, threaded with puns, music, and elegant flourishes. He redirects the narrative sideways and backward, hammering the suspense line with the skill of a seasoned bassist … This defiant queer epic is a work that belongs to all of us.”
–Hamilton Cain, The Boston Globe
2. Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
(Knopf)
18 Rave reviews • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
Read an interview with Emily St. John Mandel here
“Ambitious and captivating … Crafting memorable characters is always a challenge, and Mandel doubles the task for herself with her two timelines. Even so, she succeeds … feels like the culmination of her career so far, combining the thrills and mysteries of the author’s early crime novels with the expansive premises and speculative ruminations of later novels like Station Eleven.”
–Lincoln Michel, The New York Times Book Review
3. Switzy by Emma Cline
(Random House)
8 Rave reviews • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed
“What’s hypnotic about this novel is the illusion that a mind is decaying even as it engineers its own expiration. Cline manages to tighten the dramatic irony with increasing intensity without exposing the wires behind it… She reaches out to the fundamental longing present in every human being, to that desire that lingers until the very end.”
–Ron Charles, Substack
4. Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson
(Doubleday)
7 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an excerpt from Our Noble Selves here
“Atkinson’s lighthearted novel mines delicious humor from this clash of weathered cynicism and national heritage. Our Noble Selves reads partly as a workplace comedy… Atkinson deserves to be ranked as highly as her countryman Ian McEwan. Like him, she wields flawless prose, a dry wit, and a knack for narrative sleight of hand. This delightful historical farce underscores her versatility.”
–Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
5. May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
(Transit Books)
6 Rave • 3 Positive
“The novel invites readers to admit that we can know almost nothing about history, or even about the lives of people with whom we share this era. Reading May We Feed the King is thoroughly entertaining, yet it also compels us to linger with uncertainty: we crave clues, we crave clarity, we long for a coherent tale about the King, and Perry withholds it, pushing us to piece together the scattered fragments of the past on our own.”
–Melissa Harrison, The Guardian
