Around the world in four novels

A grifter in Los Angeles, two lost souls questioning the meaning of art, and an emotionally powerful novel following a displaced Algerian family that is perhaps the best of a seasoned writer’s career. These writers and their stories have origins in the U.S., England, India, Poland, Algiers, France, England, Salonica, Australia, Buenos Aires, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and Cuba. We invite you to travel along with them to discover their imaginary worlds.
 
All Fours by Miranda July
“It’s hard to be knocked down when you’re on all fours.” This can be taken many ways in July’s sexy romp that finds our protagonist at a crossroads in her life and marriage. She is also having a secret, torrid affair (not far from home) in a hotel room she inexplicably redecorates. Everyone in her life thinks she is driving cross-country from California to New York, but she is actually having an existential breakdown as she comes to terms with the aging process. The author is in high form as she combines banality with eroticism, hilarity with soul searching. You won’t want to miss this.
 
This Strange Eventual History by Claire Messud
“All in this strange eventful history is uncertain,” states one of Messud’s vividly drawn protagonists on a ferry ride to Dover with her husband-to-be. We accompany a peripatetic extended family as they create new ‘homes’ for themselves despite displacement. Intellectually curious and successful, each claim family and God to be their ruling planets. These characters’ triumphs (enduring love) and tragedies (illnesses, depression, regret) create a tapestry of players on the world stage across generations of the 20th century. Sparked by the author’s personal history—her father was a pied-noir from French Algeria—this is an incredibly rich and rewarding novel, enhanced with details of the politics and cultures of their times through war, love, and dislocation.
 
Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru
Kunzru, is the winner of the Chowdhury Prize in Literature for exceptional writers. This book completes his red, white, and blue theme, set in upstate New York during the pandemic. Having left London without working papers after a promising but ultimately disappointing early career as an artist, Jay is delivering groceries during lockdown. That is, until he encounters his ex-girlfriend and her husband (his former best friend) whose comfortable lifestyle is in sharp contrast to the fact that he is living in his car. Jay’s hapless life is shaken up when he is invited to stay with them, giving Kunzru an opportunity to explore the commerce of art and the nature of success.
 
The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak
If you’re craving another Ripley-style novel, this could be the book for you. Zyzak is a Polish-born writer whose talent as a filmmaker informs this riotous, thoroughly entertaining novel. Viva is an unemployed Polish immigrant who falls into a swirling plot of sex, thievery, bed-hopping, husbands and ex-husbands, Russian oligarchs, and even a Vermeer painting. It begins when she picks up a glamorous hitchhiker. “Nothing exciting had happened to me since I’d come to L.A. Until Bobby.” Soon you will wonder who’s hustling who as they careen from Hollywood to Venice in this lively picaresque.
 
They say the world is a canvas to the imagination. If you can't get there in person, the next best thing (or for some people, the very best thing) is through the imagination of writers.
​
In the meantime, happy reading!
Joni