Haven Emma Donoghue (2022) A priest and two monks in seventh-century Ireland seek to escape the evils of civilization on a rocky island, uninhabited by humans, in the North Atlantic. Like Robinson Crusoe, that granddaddy of all survival fiction, this novel keeps you turning the pages to find out how the characters stay alive in a very challenging, isolated environment. I caught a few historical inaccuracies, but never mind those. For a couple hundred pages, the narrative is a slow burn, with vivid descriptions of the natural world. Then comes the devastating conclusion, which will leave you holding the book (or Kindle) in stunned silence.
The Prophet’s Wife Libbie Grant (2022) In the early-19th-century, a wave of religious fervor swept through America, marked by revival meetings, emotional fervor, and belief in supernatural events. Several religious movements emerged, including the Latter-Day Saints, also called Mormons. The author here, herself a former Mormon, presents a fictionalized version of the development of this church, through the life of Emma Smith, wife of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith. Emma’s questioning of the authenticity of her husband’s mystical visions, though speculative, is fascinating. (The historical Emma’s opposition to the church’s practice of polygamy, however, is documented.) I found the narrative somewhat long-winded, but every few pages a passage of startling beauty stopped me in my tracks. And I learned a lot about the Latter-Day Saints.
The Sleeping Car Porter Suzette Mayr (2022) Climb aboard the train that will take you across the vast expanse of Canada in the year 1929. Meet your porter, the mild-mannered Baxter, a closeted gay black man who is brutally overworked and constantly deprived of sleep as he serves the passengers in his assigned sleeping car all day and all night on multi-day runs. (He gets so tired that he hallucinates.) Baxter has been fascinated with people’s teeth since he found an abandoned dentistry textbook. He’s saving his wages to go to dental school, but he constantly fears dismissal from his job for minor infractions. I’m the granddaughter of a railway engineer. I love trains, and I couldn’t put down this inside look at the passengers, the crew, and the world teetering on the Great Depression.
The German Wife Kelly Rimmer (2022) Historically, when WWII ended, hundreds of German scientists were quietly resettled in the US under a program called Operation Paperclip. By 1950, Huntsville, Alabama, had become a center for the development of American space technology, which was greatly advanced by these German scientists. The German Wife is a fictional exploration of how two families—one German, one American—were affected by Operation Paperclip. How did ordinary German people, especially Jews, live day-to-day during the period 1930-1950? What was it like to work for the Nazi rocket program? What decisions did German scientists make to save themselves and their loved ones? Was it right for the American government to grant the scientists immunity from prosecution? Some choices in life are ethically very clear. The other choices are the ones that this novel probes. For another take on post-WWII Germany, see my review of The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck.
