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New summer paperbacks, part two
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*Benny and Shrimp: A Novel by Katarina Mazetti (July 28) - Benny is a hardy, salt-of-the-earth farmer mourning his parents. Shrimp is a shrewd, sophisticated librarian mourning her husband. They meet in a cemetery and do not like each other. But then ... they do. This slim, bumpy, unlikely love story, originally published in Sweden, looks at romance the way most of us do, as a flawed and confusing experience ultimately well worth the trouble.
Art in America: A Novel by Ron McLarty (July 28) - Creedmore, Colorado is a community divided. A land dispute has pitted newcomer vs old-timer, and every small-town eccentric has an opinion. To bring everyone together again, they bring in unpublished author Steven Kearney to write a play about the town's history. As the land brawl rages, an unlikely romance brews, and a series of provincial characters parade on and off the stage, McLarty's Creedmore comes to vivid, unforgettable life.
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson (August 4) - A desperate man, the unnamed narrator in Davidson's debut novel, addicted to cocaine he buys with the money he makes in porn, crashes his car which bursts into flames, burning most of his body in the process. The first 100 pages of this unusual, captivating book are full of the painful, grotesque details of the burn and its treatment. In truth, it is a difficult read, but the subsequent love story, bizarre and gothic and transporting, is all the more rewarding for both protagonist and reader for having survived it. Summer is the perfect season to read this book, which requires a leap of faith and the willingness to buy into a romantic gusto most modern novelists never dare attempt.
The Lace Reader: A Novel by Brunonia Barry (August 18) - Where better than Salem, Massachusetts to set an eccentric summer mystery? When fragile survivor Towner Whitney returns to her hometown to find some respite from her hectic life, she finds herself in the middle of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her beloved great-aunt. The investigation involves the whole community, dredging up painful ghosts from the town's oppressive past and exposing the magic of the Whitney family's fortune-telling techniques ... reading lace.
The China Lover: A Novel by Ian Buruma (August 25) - Ian Buruma, who writes predominantly non-fiction, puts his meticulous research skills to work in this three-part novel revolving around the biography of real-life Japanese actress of the 1930s, Yashiko Yamaguchi. Buruma takes the reader to Japan both before and after WWII (though not in that order) and in the modern era. Through a variety of outsider perspectives, he reconstructs Yamaguchi's life story so that, as Booklist says, "she becomes our shimmering guide through the shadowy realm where art, eroticism, and politics collide."
Check out the first part of my summer paperback series.
* Indicates paperback original
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