During this holiday week, The Common is presenting highlights from the past year. Today’s highlights come from “Reviews.”
Read Melinda Misener’s review of Townie by Andre Dubus III, here, and Sarah Malone’s review of NW by Zadie Smith, here.
SAM SPRATFORD
Uncle Frédo lies in the dark, water dripping through the sheet-metal roof. His American Dream crushed by the reality of existence as a non-white, non-citizen in the U.S., he returns to Haiti for the remainder of his life. He rarely speaks and is nearly always drunk. He spends his days in a dreamless twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness.
ANDREW STEINER
Divine showing? Demonic encounter? Guilty autoerotic experiment? Whatever it is, Lucian climbs down changed, unable to share what has happened to him yet persuaded the dull scrim has been torn off the world and he has glimpsed a sublime and terrible reality.
JAY BOSS RUBIN
When we first witness her breakfast routine, in the novel’s opening pages, it’s quite charming: she spreads globules of milkfat, along with softened butter, onto her not-so-fresh bread, then dunks the bread in her hot, milky coffee. “The fat is rich and the old woman’s entire body tingles.” (Sometimes Natalia is “I,” sometimes she is “Natalia,” and most often she is “the old woman.”)
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