Historical Novels
The following book descriptions are adapted from Amazon:
Horse, Geraldine Brooks (413 pps) Pulitzer Prize winning author
Okay, this novel is unlike anything we've read in this course, but I was utterly fascinated as I read. And Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer for March, her fictional account of the absent father (Civil War) in Little Women, which one reviewer described as "pitch-perfect writing." She's also written People of the Book about the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war (still on my list for this course) as well as Year of Wonders about a village in 17th century England that quarantines itself to arrest the spread of the plague, and several others, which we'll talk about.
And yes, it is about horses, breeding them, racing them, and about their anatomical configuration. But it's also about art and art history, about slavery, about conservation and specimens at the Smithsonian. And it's set in multiple time periods, with chapters that focus on the lives of this novel's major characters. This book is beautifully written!
Here's the Amazon blurb:
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell (321 pps) National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.
A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
P. S. She has a new novel coming out--The Marriage Portrait, about Lucrezia de' Medici in Renaissance Florence. Looks really good, but won't be out until September 6. Maybe next term!
Choice #3 -- Kristin Hanna, The Magic Hour. (416 pps)
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale comes an incandescent story about the resilience of the human spirit, the triumph of hope, and the meaning of home.
In the rugged Pacific Northwest lies the Olympic National Forest—nearly a million acres of impenetrable darkness and impossible beauty. From deep within this old growth forest, a six-year-old girl appears. Speechless and alone, she offers no clue as to her identity, no hint of her past.
Having retreated to her western Washington hometown after a scandal left her career in ruins, child psychiatrist Dr. Julia Cates is determined to free the extraordinary little girl she calls Alice from a prison of unimaginable fear and isolation. To reach her, Julia must discover the truth about Alice’s past—although doing so requires help from Julia’s estranged sister, a local police officer. The shocking facts of Alice’s life test the limits of Julia’s faith and strength, even as she struggles to make a home for Alice—and for herself.
NOTE: this novel features the the theme of the "wild child," a somewhat unusual literary trope, but one with a surprisingly long history
Mystery Novels
We're going international!
Clark and Division, Naomi Hirahara (313 pps) Edgar Award-winning author
Set in 1944 Chicago, Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II. Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets.
But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.
Resurrection Bay, Emma Viskic (288 pps) Ned Kelly Award winner in 2016. Also touted as one of the year's 10 best mystery novels by Publisher's Weekly. Finalist for the CWA (Crime Writers’ Association). Book 1 of 3 in the series
Amazon blurb:
Caleb Zelic can’t hear you, but he sees everything. And he never forgets a face. Caleb Zelic's childhood friend has been brutally murdered—fingers broken, throat slit—at his home in Melbourne. Tortured by guilt, Caleb vows to track down the killer. But he's profoundly deaf; missed words and misread lips can lead to confusion, and trouble. Fortunately, Caleb knows how to read people; a sideways glance, an unconvincing smile, speak volumes.
When his friend Frankie, a former cop, offers to help, they soon discover the killer is on their tail. Sensing that his ex-wife may also be in danger, Caleb insists they return to their hometown of Resurrection Bay. But here he learns that everyone—including his murdered friend—is hiding something. And the deeper he digs, the darker the secrets . . .
NOTE: This is a bit of a quirky novel, from Australia. Another good option if you would prefer a more traditional mystery is Jane Harper's The Lost Man, a really good Australian mystery.
A Rising Man, Abir Mukherjee, (390 pps) Book 1 of 5 in the Wyndham & Banerjee series
Amazon blurb:
In the days of the Raj, a newly arrived Scotland Yard detective is confronted with the murder of a British official—in his mouth a note warning the British to leave India, or else . . .
Calcutta, 1919. Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency.
The body of a senior official has been found in a filthy sewer, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India, or else. Under tremendous pressure to solve the case before it erupts into increased violence on the streets, Wyndham and his two new colleagues—arrogant Inspector Digby and Sergeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID—embark on an investigation that will take them from the opulent mansions of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city.
Masterfully evincing the sights, sounds, and smells of colonial Calcutta, A Rising Man is the start of an enticing new historical crime series.
NOTE: This novel does have a rather slow start, but stick with it. Once it gets going, I found myself rapidly flipping pages. This could be considered more of a "man's novel," something we don't often do, but I think everyone will enjoy it.