“Citizen,” by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press)
In a year that saw small presses publish books by some of the greatest writers of our age, the best I read were those that combined keen lyricism with social purpose and political urgency. Among these Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” stands above the rest. I am still trying to reckon with this book, weeks after reading it, because it is a book that demands a reckoning: what are the ways — both public and interpersonal — racism affects and is the effect of us all? “Citizen” answers this question so sharply it cut me, often and deep.Glenn Kurtz, author of “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
“Forgiving the Angel: Four Stories for Franz Kafka,” by Jay Cantor (Knopf)
Jay Cantor’s story collection, “Forgiving the Angel: Four Stories for Franz Kafka,” takes on the 20th century’s greatest burdens through the eyes, and, far more, through the bodies, of Kafka’s friends and lovers. With concentrated grace, Cantor renders the profound interpenetration of the personal, the political, and the historical. The final two stories in particular—-focused on Ludwig Lask, husband of Kafka’s lover, Dora Diamant, and a victim of Stalin’s gulag; and Eva Muntzberg, who recalls Milena Jasenska at the Ravensbruck concentration camp—-deftly achieve what Cantor says he finds in Kafka: “an illumination of the intricacy of impossible predicaments.”
“Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War,” by Helen Thorpe (Scribner)
Can I love a friend’s book—full disclosure, etc.? Helen Thorpe’s “Soldier Girls” is a titan. Not because we become invested in the twined stories and friendship of three women who serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not because we become as horrified as Michelle when we find out she is to be deployed—she joined the Indiana National Guard to go to college and never dreamed she’d go to war. But because “Soldier Girls” is one of the best book about class in America ever written. About the grinding, soul crushing desperation of our working poor, our majority. It shocked me—the biggest battle of all: to put gas in the car, work several jobs at once, get food on the table, to keep some human dream alive of college or a small business. Every day a war.Laird Hunt, author of “Neverhome” (Little, Brown and Company)
“Collected Petrarch,” by Tim Atkins (Crater 27, London)
I saw the chief-of-staff/On the goose’s hind parts/& the beautiful/Blue of pills/Carrying a scratch/At Evening…
This 500-page-plus delight is the result of Atkins’ year’s long lyric engagement with the work of the great Renaissance poet (there is some actual Petrarch in here), but it is also, and more importantly, many other things. It is a rap on fatherhood, a busted plasma screen projection of life in 21st century England, a carnivalesque reappraisal of what poetry can and should mean, and a broke-line travelogue, by way of Barcelona, Boulder and San Francisco. I loved this book so much I wrote an introduction for it, but this barely matters in the context of such a huge englobing whole.Bret Anthony Johnston, author of “Remember Me Like This” (Random House)
“Blood Will Out,” by Walter Kirn (Liveright)
“Blood Will Out” by Walter Kirn is one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and months after finishing it, I’m still haunted by the particular and particularly deep terror at its core. Sure, the sociopathic charmer behind the crimes is unbelievably disturbing, but what makes the book so memorable isn’t the deceiver but the deceived. Kirn is gullible and compassionate, and the ways Rockefeller (nee Gerhartsreiter) suckered him are panic-inducingly effective. I turned each page feeling deeply grateful that I never crossed paths with such a sinister man, and feeling equally and selfishly happy that Kirn did.Lily King, author of “Euphoria” (Atlantic Monthly Press)
“Clever Girl,” by Tessa Hadley (Harper)Joanna Rakoff, author of “My Salinger Year” (Knopf)