Maureen Corrigan's Favorite Books Of 2019: Here Are 10 Unputdownable Reads
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Maureen Corrigan |
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Tuesday, December 3, 2019
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My best books of the year list for 2019 is a mix of literary fiction and true crime and memoirs and essays. There are acclaimed authors here, as well as some brand new voices. The only thing that unites all these books is that, in my opinion, they are unputdownable.
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This year's list is a mix of literary fiction, true crime, memoirs and essays, from acclaimed authors as well as some brand new voices — and you won't be able to put any of them down.
Transcript
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan has put together her list of the best books of the year, and it's a mix of books by authors old and new. Here's her top 10.
MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: There's a lot to talk about, so let's just get into it. Here are my top 10 books of 2019.
"The Nickel Boys" is yet another extraordinary novel by Colson Whitehead. Like "The Underground Railroad," which just came out in 2016, "The Nickel Boys" is rooted in history and American mythology, yet it's painfully topical in its vision of justice and mercy erratically denied. In the early 1960s, an African American teenager named Elwood Curtis finds himself wrongfully convicted of a crime and sent to a brutal reform school called the Nickel Academy. Whitehead's novel is short and intense, its chapters as compact as the isolation cells the Nickel Boys are thrown into and sometimes never leave.
Susan Choi's "Trust Exercise" is a deliciously sharp and self-aware novel set in the 1980s in a performing arts high school. Two first-year students, David and Sarah, fall in love within the hermetically sealed world of the school, and Choi somehow makes out of that teenaged affair a wily meditation on memory and art. Choi tells us that the theater students live by the adage acting is fidelity to authentic emotion under imagined circumstances. That's also not a bad description of how this novel, or any powerful novel, works.
Any year in which a new novel by Ann Patchett comes out is a standout year in my book. "The Dutch House" is a subtle, devastating novel about a brother and sister who stand by each other through the loss of their parents, the home they grew up in and the bedrock certainties about their shared childhood. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've reread the ending of this novel at least five times trying to unpack its sad magic.
Out of all the novels that came out in 2019, "Lost And Wanted" by Nell Freudenberger is the one that I found myself buying over and over again to give to friends. Its main character, Helen Clapp, is a professor of physics at MIT. And when the story opens, her cellphone rings and an old friend's name comes up on caller ID. The problem is that friend has just died. From that classic creeper premise, Freudenberger crafts a deeply engaging novel about friendship, midlife puzzlement and the mysteries of the universe.
Like Freudenberger, Karen Russell always has her eye on the big picture. "Orange World" is Russell's latest short story collection, and it contains a masterpiece. That story, set in the Great Depression, is called "The Prospectors." In 33 incandescent pages, Russell gives us the grit, desperation and hollow dreams of deliverance that characterized that era. The other seven stories in this collection aren't so bad either.
Poet Ocean Vuong emigrated to this country from Vietnam when he was 2 and his autobiographical novel called "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" explores the vexed situation of a child who surpasses his immigrant parents. Vuong's novel is structured in the form of a letter written by a son to his illiterate mother. Dear Ma, the novel begins, I am writing to reach you, even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are. In that single line, Vuong has captured the unintended rift that education can cause within a working-class immigrant family.
On to nonfiction. "Say Nothing" by Patrick Radden Keefe is a panoramic investigation into the disappearance of a young widowed mother of 10 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1972, the era of the Troubles. "Say Nothing" belongs as much to the genre of narrative history as it does true crime. However you want to characterize it, it's a stunning book.
"The Yellow House" by Sarah M. Broom is a sweeping multigenerational memoir focusing on her family's house in New Orleans, which was blown off its foundations when Hurricane Katrina hit. Broom pieces together a larger narrative about race, class and the long-term toxic consequences of shame.
2019 was a very good year for essay collections, but of all the ones I've read, Emily Bernard's "Black Is The Body" stays with me the most. Bernard writes with depth, poetic intensity and humor about growing up black in the South and living and teaching in the snow globe state of Vermont. Bernard's personal essays on race never hew to the safe or expected paths.
And last but certainly not least in How We Fight For Our Lives, Saeed Jones writes about growing up black, gay and isolated in Texas. Jones' voice and sensibility are so distinct. He turns the traditional coming-of-age memoir inside out and upside down. Along with Sarah Broom and Ocean Vuong, Saeed Jones is one of the three debut prose writers on my top 10 list, which is a hopeful thing to take notice of, I think, as we move into the next decade.
GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. You can find her top 10 list on our website, freshair.npr.org, where you'll also find a link to NPR's Book Concierge, which includes hundreds of 2019 titles recommended by NPR's staff and critics. So that's at freshair.npr.org.
Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll talk about what happens to the clothes, furniture and electronics you drop off at the thrift store. More specifically, what happens to the stuff they can't sell? And there's plenty of it. My guest will be Adam Minter, author of the book "Secondhand." Three generations of his family were in the junk business. He's reported on waste and recycling for nearly two decades. I hope you'll join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Mooj Zadie, Seth Kelley and Joel Wolfram. I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
View this story on npr.org
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
With his inventive plots and charged (and often witty) language Colson Whitehead knows how to his lure readers into looking squarely at some of the worst episodes in American history. In the early 1960s, an African American teenager finds himself wrongfully convicted of a crime and sent to the brutal Nickel Academy, based on a real-life reform school for boys that operated in Florida called The Dozier School. Whitehead's novel is short, intense and compassionate.
Trust Exercise
by Susan Choi
A deliciously sharp and self-aware novel, Trust Exercise is set in the 1980s in a performing arts high school. Two students fall in love within the hermetically sealed world of the school and Susan Choi somehow makes out of that teenaged affair an ingenious and entertaining meditation on the ways memory and art can comfort and tragically mislead us.
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
A gorgeous and devastating novel about a brother and sister who stand by each other through the loss of their parents, the lavish house they grew up, and the certainties they shared about their childhood memories. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've reread the ending of this novel at least five times, trying to unpack its sad magic.
Lost and Wanted
by Nell Freudenberger
The heroine of this powerful novel is a professor of physics at MIT who receives a phone call from a friend. The catch is that that friend has just died. From that classic creeper premise, Nell Freudenberger crafts a deeply engaging story about friendship, midlife uncertainty, and the mysteries of universe.
Orange World and Other Stories
by Karen Russell
The eight stories in Karen Russell's new collection range from good to really good to one certified masterpiece. That would be the first story, "The Prospectors," about two young women who hit the road during The Great Depression. In that tale, Russell gives us the grit and hollow dreams of deliverance that characterized the 1930s and she does so in language that's spirited and true.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong emigrated to this country from Vietnam when he was two years old and his autobiographical debut novel explores the vexed situation of a child who surpasses his immigrant parents. Written in the form of a letter by a son to his illiterate mother who works in a nail salon, Vuong's poetic novel explores the heavy price to be paid for dreaming of a better life.
Say Nothing
by Patrick Radden Keefe
This is a panoramic investigation into the disappearance of a young widowed mother of ten in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1972, the era of "The Troubles." Patrick Radden Keefe's book is part true crime; part narrative history. However you want to characterize it, Say Nothing is a stunning book.
The Yellow House
by Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom's debut memoir is a vivid multigeneration account of the lives lived in her family's house in New Orleans, which was blown off its foundations when Hurricane Katrina hit. By intently focusing on that house, Broom constructs a larger narrative about race, class, and the long-term toxic consequences of shame.
Black Is the Body
by Emily Bernard
In this outstanding essay collection, Emily Bernard writes with depth, poetic intensity and humor about growing up in the South and living and teaching in the snow globe state of Vermont. Bernard's autobiographical writing about race never hews to safe or expected paths.
How We Fight for Our Lives
by Saeed Jones
In his debut memoir, Jones writes about growing up black, gay and isolated in Texas. Jones' voice and sensibility are so distinct, he turns the traditional coming-of-age memoir inside out and upside down.
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