January 1, 2023
In The Wind Knows My Name, the celebrated Allende blends two bitter tales of separation: in 1938 Vienna, Samuel Adler is placed on a Kindertransport train by his mother so that he can escape the Nazis, while in 2019 Arizona, Anita D�az is pulled from her mother at the U.S. border after they have fled El Salvador for safety. In the latest from multi-award-winning Israeli author Appelfeld, Tel Aviv shopkeeper Yaakov Fine decides to travel to Poland, A Green Land, to visit his parents' ancestral village and is delighted by all he sees until he tries to purchase the tombstones from the Jewish cemetery desecrated during the Holocaust. With Be Mine, Pulitzer Prize winner Ford offers his final Frank Bascombe novel, with Frank in his twilight years facing the heart-shredding task of tending a son diagnosed with ALS (100,000-copy first printing). Following the Reese's Book Club Pick His Only Wife, Medie's Nightbloom features Selasi and Akorfa, cousins and best female friends in Ghana until Selasi becomes angry and withdrawn for reasons that take decades to emerge. In I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, her first novel in over a decade, PEN/Malamud and Rea Award winner Moore plumbs love and mortality in a tale interweaving vanished journals, a visit to a dying brother, and the questionable death of a therapy clown and an assassin. A novel-in-stories like Rachman's 500,000-copy best-selling debut, The Imperfectionists, The Impostors sets end-of-rope novelist Dora Frenhofer the task of completing her final book in pandemic lockdown, as she comes to understand her own life by contemplating her missing brother, estranged daughter, lost lover, and one enduring friend (40,000-copy first printing). In the New York Times best-selling Schulman's Lucky Dogs, two women (one a U.S. television star seeking anonymity) forge a friendship while waiting on an ice cream line in Paris, but despite a shared history of having experienced male violence, one will betray the other. From Slimani, author of the New York Times best-booked The Perfect Nanny, Watch Us Dance portrays biracial siblings in late 1960s Morocco (their father is Moroccan, their mother French) who deal differently with the era's uncertainties; tough-minded Aicha wants to study medicine in France, while her rebellious younger brother Selim would rather hang out with the hippies converging on his country.
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April 15, 2023
When a childhood friendship sours, two young Ghanaian women are filled with confusion and spite. Cousins Akorfa and Selasi were inseparable as children, and the friendship between their mothers guaranteed they spent lots of time together. But according to Akorfa, who tells the first half of the story, her mother always knew "that my cousin would grow up to break all that she touched, even the people who loved her." Akorfa's family has more money, and Akorfa is a better student than Selasi; this puts the friends on an unequal basis from the start, and Akorfa's mean-spirited mother makes sure no one forgets it. Then Selasi's mother dies in childbirth when the girls are 11. Her father sends her to live with her grandmother and moves on to start a new family; not long after, Akorfa's family moves to Accra. By the time Selasi comes to visit, things have changed between them. Akorfa goes to college in the U.S., then moves there permanently. She's married, in her 30s, and returning home for her father's memorial when she next sees Selasi, who is ice cold. "I turned to my mother. 'What did we do to her? I want to know. What have we done to Selasi?' " The next half of the book answers that question by starting the whole story over from Selasi's point of view--not the wisest narrative choice--and following her into adulthood. A brief final section is told in third person. Following the success of His Only Wife (2020), Medie seems to have bitten off more than she can chew, with themes of sexual predation, Black life in the U.S., and Ghanaian political corruption elbowing their ways into what is already an ungainly structure for the story of a broken friendship. The resolution feels forced, with a deus ex machina introduced to inspire Akorfa and Selasi to reveal the secrets that have warped their lives. This sophomore effort is likely to disappoint fans of Medie's fine debut.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
May 15, 2023
Medie (His Only Wife, 2020) returns with another engaging Ghana-based story, this one centered on the intricacies of lifelong friendships and complicated families. Cousins Akorfa and Selasi are inseparable as children, but time, adolescence, and bitter family conflict eventually set them on separate paths. Akorfa leaves to study in the U.S., and Selasi remains in Ghana. The women take turns telling their stories, which unfold as parallel lives--education, marriage, children, careers--in contrasting settings. Akorfa navigates racism and loneliness as an immigrant in the U.S., while Selasi faces classism and political injustice in Ghana. Both women unknowingly suffer sexual assault at the hands of the same relative, and both are betrayed and shamed in different ways by the families who should be protecting and defending them. When they eventually reunite after many years, decades of lies and secrets are revealed, allowing these long-estranged women to see the past with more clarity. Thought-provoking and beautifully told, this will have particular appeal to readers who are fascinated by stories that feature strong female friendships.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 12, 2023
Medie (His Only Wife) focuses on the complex relationship between two Ghanaian women in this poignant outing. Akorfa and her cousin Selasi were best friends as children, but a rift develops after they begin boarding school, where Akorfa benefits from her family’s support, including private tutors. Eventually, she leaves for the University of Pittsburgh, where she experiences various episodes of racism, beginning when her roommate’s parents automatically assume she’s there on a scholarship. After graduation, she lands a job at an NGO in Washington, D.C., marries a cardiologist, and has children. The second part tells Selasi’s story, detailing her struggles after her mother died and her father abandoned her. When she is sent to live with Akorfa’s family, Akorfa’s mother treats Selasi like a servant and Akorfa turns a blind eye. After boarding school, Selasi becomes a successful restaurateur in Ghana and marries a politician. Medie unfurls major revelations in the third part, when Selasi and Akorfa reunite in Ghana and learn they were each similarly traumatized as children, prompting them to reexamine their long-held bitterness toward each other. Though there’s a bit too much exposition, Medie keenly explores the nuances of the women’s friendship and their misplaced blame. This is worth a look. Agent: Kiele Raymond, Thompson Literary Agency.