If you liked this book, try *this* book
Here are four pairs of books you need to read!
I think we’ve all had the experience of reading a book that reminded us of another book we’ve read, whether in its subject matter, setting, or writing style. When that happens to me, I always think, “These books should be read back to back. They belong together!” So today I’m sharing four pairs of books that I think will provide you with a deeply satisfying reading experience.
In Godshot (Catapult, 2020), 14-year-oldLacey May is abandoned by her mother and comes under the sway of a preacher whose congregation has become a cult. Once she understands what it means to be “godshot,” she’s determined to escape. She tries everything she can think of to find her mother, believing there was a reason she left and that their relationship can be put right, but in doing so she finds a different kind of family. Set in a tiny farm town in California’s Central Valley, Godshot perfectly captures the personal impact of the community’s literal and moral drought.
A Prayer for Travelers (Riverhead Books, 2019) is the story of Cale Lambert, who has been raised by her ailing grandfather in an isolated desert town on the California-Nevada border. When she takes a job waitressing at the local diner, she reconnects with Penny Reyes, the bad girl of her school years. Penny begins to break Cale out of her shell by exposing her to the hidden life in her town and beyond. But following a shocking act of violence, Penny disappears, and Cale becomes obsessed with tracking her down. A Prayer for Travelers is a compelling “desert noir” with the tense, wary mood of someone stuck in the middle of nowhere at 2 a.m.
Both novels are distinguished by a strong sense of place and by fiercely determined protagonists fighting to overcome a history of neglect and abuse. Chelsea Bieker confirmed that Godshot was no fluke with her follow-up, Heartbroke (Catapult, 2022), a stellar short story collection that works with similar themes and settings, and her second novel, Madwoman (Little, Brown, 2024), about a woman who has built the life of her dreams while keeping her past a secret. Until it all threatens to unravel. I’m still waiting for Ruchika Tomar’s sophomore effort.
Now let’s travel across the U.S. to Maine and update New York. Shannon Bowring’s The Road to Dalton (Europa Editions, 2023) works some of the same territory as Richard Russo and Anne Tyler in this hybrid of a novel and interconnected stories. Set in the isolated town of Dalton in northern Maine in 1990, it depicts the multilayered and interdependent lives of several residents.
Bowring examines four marriages, a secret relationship, the trials of advancing age, guilt over things seen and unseen, and the nature of life in a town of 1,000 where people are closely connected for better or worse. She covers a lot of ground in 250 pages through crisp and revealing dialogue and telling details. And, as with Russo’s work, there is a distinct sense of time and place. Dalton is a town easily missed as you pass by momentarily and instantly forgotten by those who happen to notice it. But it’s home to people with complex inner lives and a tangled net of relationships. You will care about these fully realized characters as they deal with their desires and disappointments. The sequel, Where the Forest Meets the River (2024), was even better.
In You Are Here (Counterpoint Books, 2023), the community is a collection of people who work in a suburban Albany mall that is scheduled to close, possibly to be converted into apartments. Tina Huang owns a hair salon but dreams of returning to her true passion, art. Her son Jackson comes in after school every day to sweep up, do his homework, and secretly learn magic tricks. He befriends Maria, a high school student and aspiring actress who works in the food court. Tina’s most reliable customer is a lonely elderly woman named Ro, whose next-door neighbor, Kevin, manages the bookstore but is supposed to be finishing his dissertation. Kevin and his wife, who is Black, live with her mother. When her parents first moved to the neighborhood decades earlier, they were ostracized by Ro and everyone else.
The looming closure of the mall is the catalyst that causes their lives to become increasingly intertwined in complex and thought-provoking ways. In one sense, everyone is misunderstood because they are hiding key aspects of their true selves. But the glue that holds these people together is kindness and a latent community spirit, which shows up in unexpected ways. In the end, tragedy leads to surprising results.
The next two books are a novel and a memoir set in the Owens Valley (high desert) of California. Located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, this region is sometimes referred to as “the forgotten California.”
Properties of Thirst (2022) takes place during WWII and is a family saga, a coming of age story, a love story, an examination of the water wars with Los Angeles Department of Water (which planned to take water from the Owens Valley), and a scathing look at the construction of the Manzanar internment camp for Japanese-Americans between Lone Pine and Independence. Marianne Wiggins is an acclaimed writer who deserves to be more widely read. Her 2003 novel, Evidence of Things Unseen, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Miracle Country: A Memoir of a Family and a Landscape (Algonquin Books, 2020) is the story of the author’s family, running from the 1960s to the present, and their close ties to the harsh yet breathtaking landscape. Life in the isolated and drought-stricken Owens Valley is difficult, but for the type of people who choose to live there, it’s the only place where they feel at home. Kendra Atleework’s writing is probing yet compassionate and her prose evokes a strong sense of place. Now I know why my son and his fiancé take Highway 395 along the Eastern Sierra Nevada when they drive between their home in Lake Tahoe and Southern California (rather than the faster 5 or 99 freeways down the Central Valley).
Finally, let’s go international with two books featuring Muslim families from Lebanon and India who have immigrated to California and started new lives.
The Arsonists’ City (Harper, 2021) concerns the Nasrs, an Arab-American family based in the Southern California desert community of Blythe. The father, Idris, is a heart surgeon originally from Beirut, while the mother, Mazna, was a stage actress in Damascus before immigrating. Their three adult children are close-knit despite having relocated to Brooklyn, Austin, and Beirut. The plot is set in motion when Idris’s father dies, leaving their family home in Beirut empty. Idris surprises everyone when he announces that he plans to sell it; the house and Beirut, for better or worse, remain the family’s touchstone.
When everyone travels to Beirut to sort things out, various long-simmering conflicts come to the surface. The heart of the story is a long-held secret that played a key part in Idris and Mazna’s decision to emigrate to the U.S. These characters took up residence in my mind and eventually my heart. Hala Alyan sensitively probes each character’s life and the many tangled but loving relationships. Beirut is a vivid presence, whether the characters are at the beach, in crowded restaurants and clubs, or driving on streets dotted with military checkpoints. This is a passionate, bittersweet story that explores family life, immigration, and the fraught history of Lebanon and Syria.
A Place for Us (SJP/Hogarth, 2018) was my favorite read of 2019. Like The Arsonists’ City, it uses a milestone event as the catalyst for revelations among a close-knit family, in this case, the eldest daughter’s wedding. The wrench in the works is Amar, the bride’s younger brother, who has been estranged from the family for three years. Mirza’s debut novel uses the story of one Indian-American Muslim family living in the Bay Area to examine issues of identity, family, and finding (or making) a place for oneself in the larger community. The writing is elegant, the characters are realistically complex, and the family’s struggle to remain bound together in love is deeply involving. I was spellbound for the entire 400 pages. I’ve been encouraging people to read A Place for Us for five years. Now it’s your turn.