There’s a fair old mix of attention-snagging titles published in paperback this June. I’ll start with one that was hotly anticipated in hardback: Peter Ho Davies’ The Fortunes, his first novel since the much-lauded The Welsh Girl back in 2007. Spanning 150 years, Davies’ novel explores the Chinese-American experience through the lens of four characters: Ah Ling, the son of a prostitute, sent alone to California as a young boy in the 1860s; Anna Mae Wong, the first Chinese Hollywood movie star; Vincent Chin murdered in 1982 just because he looked Japanese and John Ling Smith, visiting America to adopt a child. Apparently, Davies has mixed real and fictional characters, drawing on his own mixed-race experience in what sounds like fascinating read, and that’s a great jacket.
Jade Chang’s The Wangs Vs the World looks at Chinese-Americans in a very different way. Set in 2008 with the financial world about to crash with the loudest of bangs, it’s about a family whose cosmetics mogul father suddenly finds himself bankrupt in a country he thought he’d made his own. He decides to claim his fabled ancestral land in China but first he needs to gather his family together, taking off on a road trip across the States in his first wife’s powder blue 1980s Mercedes. Chang makes some serious points along the way in this funny, entertaining novel.
Families – albeit a hugely dysfunctional one – and money are also the themes which run through Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest. The Plumbs have been counting on a windfall from the fund their father set up for them many years ago. What the financially compromised younger siblings have not been expecting is the plundering of their treasured Nest by their mother to get their eldest brother Leo out of trouble. Sweeney’s novel follows these four over the three months after Leo gets out of rehab until the longed-for payout day. A well-turned out, entertaining and absorbing piece of fiction which quietly delivers a serious message about money and expectations.
Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk also has a foot in dysfunctional family territory, exploring ‘the violently primal bond between mother and daughter’ according to its publishers. It’s set in Spain where the daughter has taken her mother to an alternative clinic in the hope of discovering a cure for her paralysis which may or may not be psychologically induced. While her mother undergoes a series of odd treatments, the daughter becomes caught up in ‘the seductive mercurial games of those around her’. That synopsis isn’t entirely up my street but Levy has been praised by so many people whose opinions I trust that it’s worth a try.
I’ll end this first June paperback instalment with Hiromi Kawakami’s The Nakano Thrift Shop, about colleagues so immersed in each other’s lives they come to seem like family. The socially awkward Hitomi looks back over the year she spent in Mr Nakano’s shop selling second-hand goods alongside the taciturn Takeo who joins Mr Nakano on house clearances. As these two stumble into the most tenuous of relationships, Mr Nakano’s sister Masayo cheers them on from the side lines. Written in quietly understated prose infused with a gentle humour, Kawakami’s novel is an absolute delight. One of my favourite books of last year. it’s a reminder that joy can to be found in the most prosaic of lives.
A click on a title will take you to my review for The Wangs Vs the World, The Nest and The Nakano Thrift Shop or to a more detailed synopsis for those I haven’t yet read, should you be interested. If you’d like to catch up with June’s new titles they’re here. Second paperback batch to follow shortly…
I’ve always meant to read The Nakano Thrift Shop, so this might be the reminder I needed…
It’s a beautifully turned out feelgood book, Marina. A particularly good read if you’re feeling disillusioned with the news.
Ah, look, it’s a list of books I have in hardback and haven’t read yet! (Not quite true as I read Hot Milk and thought it was superb.) Keen to read all the books by women on here. One day…
I will get onto Hot Milk eventually. If you need a bit of cheering up I’d recommend The Nakano Thrift Shop. It’s a heartwarming little gem.
Short of promising my first-born child, I could not get an ARC of The Nest for anything… perhaps they’ll be more generous with the paperback because I really, really want to read it. Looks like it goes on my ‘buy’ list.
That’s surprising – I wonder why they were so stingy. I think it’ll be worth the wait though, Kate
Like Marina, I had rather forgotten about The Nakano Thrift Shop, so your post has acted as a useful memory jogger. Those covers are wonderful, aren’t they? So eye-catching.
They lift the spirits, don’t they? If, like me, you’re feeling a little beaten down with by the constant electioneering, The Nakano Thrift Shop’s just the thing to take your mind of it.
i should take a look at the Peter Ho Davies – would be rather less sugary than the Lisa See novel which also looks at the Chinese immigrant experience. Hot Milk is one I started reading but gave up pretty quickly – the first section had some interminable scene about jellyfish stings …
Hmm… I wasn’t terrifically keen on Hot Milk anyway but that’s pretty off-putting! The Ho Davies looks much more promising to me. Did you read The Welsh Girl, Karen?
I havent read it – its on my e reader but I keep forgetting I have it
The Nest sounds really interesting, and I heard such good things about Peter Ho Davies’ first novel (which I still haven’t read!). I’ll definitely be reading Hot Milk – I deeply admire Deborah Levy’s prose style. I read her memoir about writing, Things I Don’t Want To Know and was completely blown away. So I’m willing to give this one a chance. If you’re undecided about her, do try the memoir. That I can fully recommend.
Perhaps I’ll start there, then, Victoria. So many people have praised Levy’s writing that I feel I should at least give her a try. The Nest is the kind of book you can escape into, well-written and thoroughly entertaining with it.
Hot Milk is a tricky novel but interesting! I loved the Nakano Thrift Shop too.
Lovely book, isn’t it, just the thing if you;re feeling jaded. As for Hot Milk, I’ve a feeling it will end up being bought at some stage.
The cover of The Fortunes is something else, very arresting. Hot Milk remains on my to read list for when the mystical day comes when I can read fiction again. I have a copy languishing with my other neglected fiction books. Interesting selection, as always.
Thanks, Belinda. I do love that jacket – tells a story in itself.