During the Reign of the Queen of Persia

Set on a small Ohio farm, this “moving, unusual, and accomplished” multigenerational family saga is a “Norman Rockwell painting gone bad” as it explores grief, motherhood, and coming-of-age in Middle America (Margaret Atwood).

Joan Chase’s subtle story of three generations of women negotiating lifetimes of “joy and ruin” deserves its place alongside such achievements as Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women.

The Queen of Persia is not an exotic figure ...