Review by New York Times Review
RED CLOCKS, by Leni Zumas. (Little, Brown, $26.) This highly absorbing novel imagines a near future of America in which abortion is illegal in all 50 states. Zumas has a perfectly tuned ear for the way society relies on a moralizing sentimentalism to restrict women's lives and enforce conformity. HERE IN BERLIN, by Cristina Garcia. (Counterpoint, $26.) In a series of short quasi-fictional encounters, the Cuban-American novelist uses a chorus of voices to explore the long, ghostly reach of Germany's history, in which the remembered or purposefully forgotten past seems as alive as the present. THE NEWCOMERS: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom, by Helen Thorpe. (Scribner, $28.) Thorpe spent a year with teenage refugees in a Denver school's "newcomer class," documenting their lives as the presidential campaign stirred up nativist resentment. Partly a story of assimilation, it also details her growing awareness of other cultures. THE LARGESSE OF THE SEA MAIDEN: Stories, by Denis Johnson. (Random House, $27.) Johnson's long preoccupation with mortality culminates in a posthumous collection. "It's plain to you that at the time I wrote this, I'm not dead," one character says. "But maybe by the time you read it." TRUMPOCRACY: The Corruption of the American Republic, by David Frum. (HarperCollins, $25.99.) Frum argues that the Trump presidency is not only about Donald Trump but also about the deeper structural problems of America in general, and conservative America in particular. He thinks that what the country faces is nothing less than a threat to the democratic order. THE YEARS, MONTHS, DAYS, by Yan Lianke. Translated by Carlos Rojas. (Black Cat, paper, $16.) A pair of novellas in which the noted Chinese novelist (and frequent target of government censorship) paints a darkly satirical portrait of stranded characters adrift in a depraved society. BIRDING WITHOUT BORDERS: An Obsession, a Quest and the Biggest Year in the World, by Noah Strycker. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27.) Follow one young birder as he spends an entire year traveling the world to see as many species of birds as he can - a number that ends up being a record-breaking 6,042. JEFFERSON'S DAUGHTERS: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America, by Catherine Kerrison. (Ballantine, $28.) Kerrison follows the lives of the third president's three daughters, including Harriet Hernings, born to his slave Sally Hernings. GORILLA AND THE BIRD: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love, by Zack McDermott. (Little, Brown, $27.) McDermott spent years battling bipolar disorder with the support of his Midwestern mother, who didn't quit even when he was in a psych ward. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 6, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This volume contains two highly acclaimed novellas from Lianke, winner of the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize, three-time nominee for the Man Booker International Prize, and author of 14 novels and more than 40 short stories. The Years, Months, Days, winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize, is the magnificent story of an elderly man's decision to remain in his village during a terrible drought to raise a single corn seed. Together, the Elder and his only companion, a blind dog, fight to survive as food becomes scarce and nature itself threatens to overcome them. In Marrow, a widowed woman seeks a cure for her four mentally disabled children. After her husband commits suicide, she is left to raise them and take care of her crops by any means possible. However, when she discovers that the bones of a close relative can cure her children's mental illness, she takes extreme measures to provide enough bones for them all. Lianke paints vivid scenes of desolate circumstances with an incredible mastery of words and control of his imagery. His masterpieces are sure to engage readers.--Park, Emily Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Lianke's talent for the fantastical shines in this collection of two novellas. In the title piece, an elder stays behind after a long drought drives his fellow village residents to more amiable climates; he claims he'd "surely die of exhaustion" if he joined their pilgrimage. With only his blind dog by his side, and battling both the elements and encroaching wild beasts, the elder toils under the hot sun to survive, nursing a lone corn seedling and devising various schemes to stay alive. "Marrow," the second novella, features a devoted mother who will stop at nothing to provide her disabled children with happiness. A widow, she speaks to her husband's ghost as she wheels and deals to land suitors, promising grains and goods to potential mates and leaving herself with little to survive. Though they contain dark subject matter, Lianke's fables of personal sacrifice are also sharply observed and funny. Lianke's narratives feel much larger than their page count suggest, almost epic. Agent: Laura Susjin, the Susjin Agency. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Set in the fictional Balou Mountains in Yan's home province of Henan (also the setting for Lenin's Kisses), these two compelling novellas both exalt emotional bonds and warn against their fatal consequences. To escape endless drought, an entire village flees in search of sustenance in "Years, Months, Days." A left-behind 72-year-old man and his blind dog work obsessively to ensure the harvest of the sole remaining corn stalk, sustained by their tenacious devotion for each other. In "Marrow," a widowed mother has made their village "infamous" with her epileptic offspring: You Village is better known as Four Idiots Village. She managed to marry her two older daughters to "a cripple [and] a one-eyed freak," respectively, but her third daughter demands a "wholer" husband. The mother's search grows frantic as her youngest continuously makes sexual advances toward his sister. She'll stop at nothing-deception, grave robbing, death-to get her children properly coupled. Dexterously rendered by Duke professor Rojas (Yan's anointed translator), this work again directs the author's unflinching gaze on life's impossible absurdities, exposing a surreal mixture of brutality, openness, even sly humor. VERDICT Libraries with internationally minded readers will want to provide Yan's provocative latest-in-English title to his substantial audiences. [See Prepub Alert, 6/26/17.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
