By Susanna Clarke
CRITIC'S CHOICE
Clarke's debut novel goes where Harry Potter fears to tread—into a world where wand-waving is malevolent and decidedly not for children. Combining folklore and fantasy with horror-story imagination, she creates a Napoleonic-era England alive with the promise—and danger—of uncontrollable forces.
In 1807 London, scholar Gilbert Norrell resurrects magic from its dormant state. He takes on a pupil, one Jonathan Strange. Each has a secret. Norrell has dabbled in black magic, unwittingly releasing a pernicious force. Meanwhile, Strange, growing frustrated with his mentor, vows to bring back the Raven King, a powerful magician and the symbol of the art in all its terrible glory.
Clarke's sober style keeps the fantasy grounded, and meticulous historical research brings the magical episodes to terrifying life. This is a gorgeous book of unforgettable images—a servant walking through the London rain outfitted with the crown, orb and scepter of a king; a peasant girl bled to death by a fairy's kiss; a "box, the color of heartache" in which a society woman's finger is stored. Clarke is the real magician here; in her capable hands, all this and infinitely more seems possible.
FANTASY
By Orhan Pamuk
"Because we've fallen under the spell of the West, we've forgotten our own stories," says Blue, an Islamic terrorist, to Ka, the Turkish poet whose story links politics and love in this brilliant novel. Ka "had tired of his country's neverending troubles and come to despise its backwardness, only to find himself gazing back with love." Returning to Turkey for his mother's funeral after years of exile in Germany, he seeks out the beautiful Ipek, a former classmate who now lives in a bleak northern city where pious girls are committing suicide because they're forbidden to wear their head scarves at school.
Suicide in Islam is a greater sin than uncovering one's head, and this is only the first of many layers of irony and absurdity Pamuk illuminates as Ka penetrates the political and spiritual life of Turks turning to Islamic fundamentalism. When a snowstorm descends, every primal fear and longing clashes in what seems to become a citywide psychosis. Pamuk writes with such grace and deep respect for his conflicted characters that this rich novel passes like a dream, encompassing every aspect of love and belief.
NOVEL
By Patricia Cornwell
Cornwell gets her Hitchcock on in the 13th thriller featuring her popular protagonist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Scarpetta, a former medical examiner and current pathologist for hire, is pitted against childlike psycho Edgar Allan Pogue, who has seriously warped "mother" issues and a craving for human ashes. Cornwell is too crafty to rely solely on a Norman Bates-esque killer to generate creeps, so she also weaves in a medical mystery involving a healthy 14-year-old girl who dies in bed from no obvious causes. How the author ties the scary strands together is a slick, unsettling trick.
Cornwell can generate willies with subtle poetic turns: a building is "built of stone the hue of old blood." She also enjoys messing with the cluttered head of her once proud, now hurting heroine, who is sorting through a past riddled with insecurities. Recurring characters turn up to lend a hand, but considering how wickedly Cornwell can treat her fictional friends, you never know whose number is up.
THRILLER
By Liza Ward
Caril Ann Fugate was just 14, eyes twinkling behind long brown hair, and her lover, Charles Starkweather, was 19 and "wiry as a cow dog" when the couple went on a real-life murder rampage in 1958. Captured outside Valentine, Neb., Charlie got the chair. Caril Ann, who was paroled in 1976, gets better treatment: this improbably sympathetic, fictionalized portrait, written by a grandchild of two of Starkweather's victims.
The book is not for the fainthearted. We see the serial murders filtered through Caril Ann's stunned eyes, as she peeks at Charlie from around corners and over railings. "There is a breath stuck in my chest," she recounts of one killing. "There is a pool of blood becoming the carpet." Even before the slayings, unsettling portents abound. Caril Ann watches Charlie lying on his back, "stiff as a board, like something electric that wasn't plugged in, his eyes wide open." That spare and evocative prose makes for a harrowing read as the torments of the characters ripple across generations. But Ward leads them to a poignant, shared redemption.
NOVEL
By Alan Furst
Even if you've had enough of World War II novels that feature heroic acts of derring-do, Furst's series of thrillers, of which this is the eighth, is worth your while. Instead of focusing on Greatest Generation righteousness, he describes how the war transformed average European citizens into spies. Each book is set in a different country, and this one stars Dutchman E.M. DeHann, captain of the cargo ship Noordendam, who is enlisted to transport soldiers and secrets for the Allies. Taking sides against Germany forces him into contact with submarines, mine fields, saboteurs and other secret agents, as well as a series of multiethnic lovers. Despite these adventures, there's not that much treachery in this spy's life, so the pleasure lies in Furst's picturesque descriptions of ports of call and detailed tidbits about how one disguises a ship at sea, contacts another spook or survives a divebomber attack. Dark Voyage is the most nautical book in the series, so those who tire easily of boat lingo but still like the premise should try one of Furst's earlier titles, each of them full of intrigue.
THRILLER
By David Benioff
Most of these eight tales are jewels—compassionate, compelling and surprising. Benioff slyly carves up some old chestnuts: Who would guess that the crusty talent agent of the title story would turn out to be a sentimentalist compared to his supposed victim, rocker Molly Minx? Similarly, "The Barefoot Girl in Clover," about a jock reflecting on a crazy oneday romance in his past, appears headed down a predictable path but concludes with a powerful moment of truth.
There are disappointments. Benioff knows Hollywood (he wrote Troy), but "The Garden of No," about an actress's case of bruised vanity, serves up a cliché worthy of daytime TV: Everyone faces rejection sometimes.
STORIES
By David Mitchell
This strange and wildly entertaining novel leaps from decade to decade and voice to voice to link six tales. An American at sea in 1850 witnesses brutal colonialism, then his journals turn up in the hands of a 1930s ne'er-do-well planning to con a famous composer in Belgium, and so on up to the story of a post-apocalyptic tribe. The fun lies in detecting the subtle recurring symbols (a comet-shaped birthmark) and unifying themes: the cruelty of power and the shaky possibility of human redemption. Cloud Atlas is a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative.
NOVEL
InTents
Photographer Patrick McMullan has captured the glorious chaos behind the scenes at New York Fashion Week (which begins Sept. 8) for more than a decade. His intimate shots of the runway action are collected in an exuberant volume called InTents.
- Contributors:
- Arion Berger,
- Heidi Jon Schmidt,
- Sean Daly,
- Laura Italiano,
- Edward Nawotka,
- Maureen Harrington,
- Joe Heim.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
