This month’s best fiction brings us new works from powerhouse writers including Meg Wolitzer, Charles Frazier, Julian Barnes, and Christopher Moore. It’s a literary feast of nostalgic love stories, satirical noir, lighthearted mysteries, and historical fiction, with Curtis Sittenfeld’s (Prep, American Wife) delectable collection of short stories providing the appetizers.
The trappings of noir are nothing if not versatile. You just need a city—fantastical or not—with space for the moral shades of gray that allow protagonists to explore their light and dark sides. There are tropes—the detective stand-in’s moral relativism being a primary example—but they’re relatively loose, less rules than guidelines to keep the narrative moving. A […]
My first exposure to Christopher Moore was his supremely absurd 2002 novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. Just reading that wonderfully daring title, I knew this guy was different. And I liked the words inside, too—quite a lot. A subsequent perusal of his backlist, and the devouring of everything he’s written […]
The convergence of Easter and April Fools’ Day is a rare event—the last time it happened was all the way back in 1956, and it won’t happen again until 2029. But this year, the calendar has worked its bizarre magic, giving us painted eggs and pranks on the same day. And all I can think […]