Quiet novels Archives

French Braid

by Anne Tyler

In her 24th novel, Anne Tyler offers a funny and wise meditation on the enduring imprint of one’s family of origin. This multigenerational story portrays life with the Garrett family of Baltimore over a sixty-year span, beginning with a rare vacation in 1959 and ending in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In vignettes set every ten years or so, the common thread is the little kindnesses and cruelties that characterize the family, along with their constitutional inability to share their true thoughts and emotions with each other. In the final pages, one character compares the indelible imprint of his family to his daughter’s French braid: “That’s how families work,” he says. “You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.” The family may be exasperating, but the book is anything but. I loved this. For fans of Tyler’s Redhead by the Side of the Road and Elizabeth Strout’s Oh, William!

Search: A Novel

by Michelle Huneven

This book was an unexpected delight. It's a novel, written as a comic memoir (with recipes, even!), that opens with a fake premise to the second edition. The premise is this: successful food journalist and restaurant critic Dana Potowski has attended her progressive Unitarian Universalist church for more than two decades. Now the church needs a new pastor, and Dana is asked to serve on the search committee. She doesn't want to do it, because it sounds like a giant pain, plus lately she's been opting for sleeping in over attending service more often than not. But she does need an idea for her next book, and realizes that a memoir about her time on the search committee—including the recipes her readers expect from her—could be perfect. And so she says yes. Whether you're drawn to the possible religious factor here or concerned about it, you should know Dana's church prides itself on being neither religious nor particularly spiritual; more than anything this is a story of finding your path and your people, plus a close-up look at the delightfully maddening process of an all-too-human committee. I'm certain this is exactly the book some of you are searching for, right now.

Trust

by Hernan Diaz

Literary historical fiction that is a book within a book within a book, weaving a tangled web of power, wealth, and deceit. While many Americans struggled after the Wall Street crash of 1929, Benjamin and Helen Rask flourished. The popular novel Bonds, published in 1937, details their privileged upbringing, excessive lifestyle, and the cost of acquiring their fortune. But Bonds might not be the whole story or the right one. Fans of epistolary literature will appreciate the four-part structure of a novel, autobiography draft, memoir by the biographer, and diary excerpts. Every time you think you know the story, it transforms into something else.

One Day author Nicholls delivers a quiet and unconventional post-pandemic tale in this 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection about two lonely middle-aged people falling in love as they trek through the English countryside. Geography teacher Michael and copyeditor Marnie, both still hurting in the aftermath of unhappy marriages that ended, meet for a group walk across the moors arranged by a bossy mutual friend. No one thinks they have anything in common—and yet when thrown together on the trail, they discover the sort of companionship they never dreamed they’d find again. Grammar nerds and Anglophiles will find a special pleasure in this bittersweet work of contemporary fiction that made me laugh so hard I shook the whole couch.

Long Island

by Colm Tóibín

In this wistful literary standalone set in the 1970s and 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection, Tóibín returns to his beloved character Eilis Lacey from his 2009 novel Brooklyn. Now in her forties with two teenage children, Irishwoman Eilis is still married to Tony, and still feels like an outsider amongst—and sometimes a prisoner in—his large Italian family. When a stranger appears at her door with a staggering revelation about her husband’s life and choices, Eilis finds herself at a crossroads in her life and marriage, and escapes from Long Island to her small Irish hometown after a decades-long absence to contemplate her future. The neighborhood dynamics are both utterly prosaic and heavy with meaning: this is the kind of book where a bit of gossip whispered by one neighbor to another makes you gasp aloud.

Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

This oddly structured page-turner from Nashvillian Ann Patchett fuses opera and a hostage crisis–and surprisingly, it works. Japanese businessman and opera buff Katsumi Hosokawa is celebrating his birthday in an unnamed South American country, in the company of diplomats, government officials, and businessman. Mr. Hosokawa has no intention of building the factory they're courting him for but he can't resist attending, because the South Americans have secured a performance by legendary soprano Roxanne Coss. The country's president is unable to attend (he's much too interested in what happens on his favorite soap opera on Tuesday nights), and his fixation spares him from being taken hostage when a militant group storms the gathering. Intriguing, highly readable, and loosely based on a true story.

Small Rain

by Garth Greenwell

This literary novel, Greenwell's third, just came out on September 3 and is featured in our 2024 Fall Book Preview. The fictional narrative is inspired by a sudden medical crisis the author suffered in the summer of 2020, the onset of which was signaled by debilitating pain that promptly landed him in the ICU wing of an Iowa hospital. In one sense, this is the story of a man who doesn't get out of bed. But it also has an expansiveness to it, because though he is laid flat by his illness, he can travel anywhere at all in his mind, and does. Thanks to a compassionate first person perspective we accompany the narrator as he is bewildered by the transpiring medical events—but also takes moments to reflect on his past, his relationships, and the meaning of his small life. Because the narrator is an artist and music lover, he also constantly thinks of books, poems, and pieces of music that he loves, and these reflections are a treat for those who share the same affinity. I read this quiet book in a single day, and expect it to land on my best-of-the-year list. A note to the sensitive reader: content warnings abound.

The Last Year of the War

by Susan Meissner

In the spirit of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, this novel centers on the friendship that blooms between two young American girls interned at a Texas camp during World War II, and the force that reconnects them decades later. Fourteen-year-old Elise lived her whole life in Iowa; her parents had been in the States twenty years before the war. Mariko grew up in L.A., but was sent to the camp with her Japanese family. I learned so much about this shameful period of American history from these pages.

A Place for Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

This slow-burning debut about an Indian-American Muslim family skillfully probes themes of identity, culture, family, and generational change. "I am to see to it that I do not lose you," reads the epigraph (Whitman), and the story wonders if, despite our best intentions, one might nevertheless wound someone they love deeply enough to lose them forever. The story opens with the oldest daughter’s wedding: the bride scans the crowd for her beloved yet rebellious brother, hoping he'll appear despite being estranged from the family for years. Through a series of flashbacks, and in rotating points of view, Mirza examines the series of small betrayals that splintered the family, skillfully imbuing quotidian events—a chance meeting at a party, a dinner conversation about a spelling test—with deep significance, showing how despite their smallness, they irrevocably alter the course of the family’s life. The last section is a stunner, but grab the tissues first. For fans of Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart.

The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

I waited far too long to read this one. Jim Mustich, author of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, and I chatted about Ishiguro’s famous novel on Episode 165 of What Should I Read Next. If you’re craving a road trip through the English countryside, or you just saw the Downton Abbey movie and need more stories of upstairs-downstairs dynamics, this book is for you. Stevens, longtime butler of an English country estate, takes a much-needed vacation to drive through the country and visit friends. Over the course of his trip, he reflects on his past exposing his quiet and unseen role in history. This book is indeed worth reading in this lifetime.

Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing author Gyasi delivers another sweeping family story about grief, faith, and the power of human connection. Gifty studies neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine, with a focus on depression and addiction. It’s no coincidence that she’s chosen to study illnesses that impact those she loves most. Her brother, a gifted student and athlete, died of a heroin overdose after a devastating knee injury. Her mother stays in bed, battling depression and grief. As Gifty leans on her work to help her understand her family, she longs for understanding, and faith. Piercingly sad, but ultimately hopeful. Narrated by one of my favorites: Bahni Turpin.

Brood: A Novel

by Jackie Polzin

Will and I thought about getting chickens for years but never went for it, and it turns out chickens are really hard to keep alive. The nameless main character manages to care for her brood of four chickens through a Minnesota winter, a summer tornado, and the random ailments that strike chickens down without explanation or warning. While pouring herself into her new hobby, she's also coping with heavy grief and disappointment due to a recent miscarriage and the possibility of a cross-country move. If you're in the mood for a quiet, introspective book that's on the shorter side, this might be right for you.

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