Literature & Fiction – The Outliers

John Boyne has dealt with a wide variety of topics and ideas over the course of his twenty-plus novels, and in All the Broken Places he takes us into the life of a ninety-one year-old woman with a giant problem. She has a dark past she wishes to hide, one relating to Nazi Germany, but one night she witnesses a violent argument between her new neighbours, one which threatens to expose the history she so carefully protected for decades.

Colleen Hoover has the habit of taking her readers along to explore some of the more difficult-yet-meaningful aspects of human existence, as she does once again in Reminders of Him. The story follows Kenna Rowan, a young mother having just served a five-year prison sentence, coming back home in an attempt to reconnect with her four-year-old daughter, despite everyone intent on shutting her out.

Celeste Ng is an author who uses her voice not only to entertain, but to also lead a personal fight against the discrimination and injustice still suffered by Americans of Asian descent. In her latest novel, Our Missing Hearts, she tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy going out on a quest to find his missing mother, a Chinese-American poet, amidst a country gripped by national fervour and excessive patriotism.

Benjamin Labatut is quickly proving himself a unique author defying traditional classification, a notion he reinforced most recently when he published his third novel, When We Cease to Understand the World. In short, it's a fictional examination following the lives of numerous real-life scientists and mathematicians, with an emphasis on the earth-shattering discoveries they've made and the repercussions those have had on the world, both beneficial and destructive.

Joshua Henkin has sought to tackle the types of questions which have no concrete answers across his numerous works, and he continues his streak with his most recent novel, Morningside Heights. It follows the story of Ohio-born Pru Steiner, who arrives in New York in 1976 and gets married shortly after. Thirty years later, her life controlled by her husband's illness, Pru has a chance encounter which leads her on an unexpected and unpredictable path.

Richard Bach is without the shadow of a doubt one of the most original and inspiring authors of the twentieth century, somewhat ironic considering his self-professed disdain for writing. In Illusions and Illusions II he tells a tale starring himself, one where he meets Donald Shimoda, a self-professed messiah capable of elevating Richard's world to new and unseen heights.

Yaa Gyasi has stunned the world more than once since her recent arrival on the literary scene, and Transcendent Kingdom is her latest effort to draw on her unique life experiences to write a novel. The story follows Gifty, a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience whose brother passed from a heroin overdose and whose suicidal mother basically lives in her bed. Struggling to find answers in both science and faith, Gifty sees there are no easy paths open to her.

Brit Bennett is a relatively new author on the scene, but both her novels have already turned into bestsellers, and perhaps more importantly, her second novel titled The Vanishing Half, has opened many peoples' eyes to her insightful worldview. Taking place across many years and all over the United States, the story follows the fates of two sisters who escape their hometown but end up living in polar opposite worlds years down the line.

James McBride has always had a remarkable ability to examine and understand the human mind, and in Deacon King Kong he puts his talents on display once again. Taking us to a housing project in Brooklyn, we witness the shooting of a drug dealer by an old church deacon and its far-reaching effects on those who witnessed it, as well as those who didn't.

Catherine Chung has surprised many people with the publication of her popular first novel, Forgotten Country, and with her second novel, The Tenth Muse, she returns with another rather unique premise. The novel follows a woman by the name of Katherine, who attempts to carve a space for herself in the man-dominated academic world of mathematics, while also searching for her real parents, and ultimately, what secrets her family might hold from her.

Gabino Iglesias may have very well given a voice to generations' worth of struggle in his novel Coyote Songs, detailing the many harrowing fates of the people living in the everlasting turmoil of the American-Mexican border. A father trying to give his family opportunity, a young artist realizing she is setting herself up for exploitation, and a coyote devoting his life to saving children by helping them flee to America all have their own, unforgettable stories to share.

Robert Dugoni is without a doubt one of the modern giants of literature, his novels earning him fame around the globe. Though he is generally accustomed to writing thrillers, he went in a different direction with The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, presenting us with a profound drama. The story is centred on the titular Sam, a boy who had the misfortune of being born with ocular albinism, branding him as an outcast from his earlier years. Now a few decades later, Sam looks back upon his life, uncertain of anything anymore, armed only with the will to make sense of the path he had to walk.

Keith Gessen is in a better position than most to truly ponder on the relation between home and country, having grown up in the United States since the age of six after his family emigrated there from the Soviet Union. In A Terrible Country, he presents us with a man in his mid-30s by the name of Andrei who went through the exact same path, with a small difference: he chooses to come back to the country he left behind so many years ago. With few prospects to dream about in the U.S., he hopes to find in Moscow the topic for an article to propel his career... unsuspecting of an infinitely greater prize to his journey: profound insights into the human soul.

The question whether or not to have children is one that's becoming more and more prominent in people's minds, for long gone are the days when we needed to have as many children as possible to put them to work and have someone to take care of us. There are many who decide against it, and in her debut novel, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, Cherise Wolas explores just such a woman. Having married a man who shared her desire not to have children, Joan sees her world turned upside down as she becomes unexpectedly pregnant, and against her instincts, decides to keep the child and nevertheless build the family she never really wanted.