Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your June reading list.
With books tied to historical anniversaries and about two driven women, June offers a powerful perspective on what and how we remember. The novelist engages in social shunning, ghosts of ancestors and sorrows on the beach; nonfiction writer with overturned case law, misplaced aspirations and reclaiming the legacy of brilliant comics.
FICTION
The Future of Color: A Novel
By Patrick Nathan
Counterpoint: 224 pages, $26
(June 4)
Nathan employs the timeless “strangers come to town” plot, as a gay Hungarian Jew named George Curtis is invited to a beautiful Malibu home for the heyday of 1950s Hollywood. However, George’s backstory in Manhattan and the season in Paris bookend that bacchanalia and shows how dark the shadow of McCarthyism and its “Lavender Scare” loomed over the queer community – as another day’s paranoias for others, reminds the reader that it has not changed. enough.
Godwin
By Joseph O’Neill
Pantheon: 288 pages, $28
(June 4)
From “Netherland” to “The Dog” and now in “Godwin,” O’Neill has shown a strong interest in team sports (cricket, soccer) and colonialism (in Dubai, and Africa in general). As the protagonist Mark Wolfe, recently disgraced at work in Pittsburgh, trying to help his half-sister search for an African football star (the titular Godwin), mordant humor and a keen observation of capitalism at the end-stage give rise to the theme of how and where. and when we support each other.
Tiananmen Square: A Novel
By Lai Wen
Spiegel & Grau: 528 pages, $22
(June 4)
June 4 is the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The pseudonymous Lai Wen’s fictional account of growing up under communism and the friendships he forged as a student provides an important window into what led to China’s student protests that eventually turned violent. Even knowing the outcome, readers will be surprised by the author’s insightful and moving narrative of political consciousness in a time of danger.
Sandwiches: A Novel
By Catherine Newman
Harper: 240 pages, $27
(June 18)
With the pacing of a thriller, observations equal to poetry and real-life conflicts like a memoir, Newman’s novel about one week a family on Cape Cod must find a place in their beach bag, despite their own hot vacation in Bali. The menopausal Rocky, his wife, two grown children (along with one partner), and his aging parents love time-honored traditions but also have to think about how to negotiate the changing times in everything.
Devil Is Fine: Novel
By John Vercher
Celadon Books: 272 pages, $29
(June 18)
Vercher’s second novel provides a fascinating perspective, even darker than “American Fiction,” on what it means to be a person of color in our country’s book publishing industry. As the unnamed narrator copes with parenting a teenage son, he receives an unexpected inheritance from his white mother’s family that triggers a tragic vision – and allows him to finally untangle his feelings about his own identity.
NON-FICTION
Miss May Never Was: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius
By Carrie Curogen
Middle school: 400 pages, $30
(June 4)
92-year-old Elaine May is gone, and Carrie Courogen’s biography of May reveals her long and vibrant career – and how her special talent for writing comedy was overlooked by many of her peers. Despite her stellar, groundbreaking work with Mike Nichols, May didn’t experience a career liftoff until her 50s, when she became known as a script fixer. Today, the commitment to creative control is an important note for women in media.
The Fall of Roe: Rise of a New America
By Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer
Flatiron Books: 448 pages, $33
(June 4)
The subtitle of this new book by New York Times journalists Dias (religion) and Lerer (politics) emphasizes how the strategy of far-flung and secret conservative religious factions to put anti-abortion activists in the spotlight will change the rights for America in June 2022. The authors warn that Democrats do not change their own strategy, we can see a completely different nation emerge because of one problem.
Monster Ambition: A Memoir
By Jennifer Romolini
Atria: 304 pages, $29
(June 4)
Host of the podcast “Everything Is Fine” and author of “Weird in a World That’s Not,” Romolini here focuses on his own difficult upbringing and (at least early) relationships that did not work with achievements and signals, from the corner office to the salary that many. . Even after he got everything, he was not fulfilled. This personal narrative chronicles how the author overcame his inner fears to find a more authentic path.
When the Sea Lives: An Oral History of D-Day
By Garrett M. Graff
Avid Reader Press: 608 pages, $33
(June 4)
June 4 also marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, and Graff’s collection of 700 participant stories provides a fascinating window into the kinds of military maneuvers that living Americans can remember. A surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the coast of France resulted in the defeat of the Axis forces. Reading the experiences of survivors in their own words proves a viable practice.
The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir
By Griffin Dunne
Penguin Press: 400 pages, $30
(June 11)
Griffin Dunne has spent his life surrounded by brilliant writers: his father, Dominick Dunne; his uncle and aunt, John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion; and his brother, Alex Dunne. Griffin Dunne is also an actor/director/producer. Perhaps the literary talent on display in this heartbreaking memoir should come as no surprise. However, he felt strongly about the murder of his sister Dominique in 1982, which opens the book, shocking with its honesty, spareness and elegant structure.
