As the impending Supreme Court decision about the future of abortion reignites polarizing ideologies, Jennifer Haigh’s Mercy Street invites readers to see the issues through a human lens. A master storyteller, Haigh handles her characters with compassion whether they are bitter misogynists, drug dealers, white supremacists or protesters throwing rosary beads like stones at the…
In Claire Luchette’s debut novel, Agatha comes into her own like a pot coming to a slow boil. The Catholic sisterhood seems a safe place to enjoy the camaraderie of other women, pass her days with spoiled students and recovering addicts, and quietly hide from questions she dares not ask. But the simmering crisis of…
When the heroine of my forthcoming novel, Candlewood, moves to New York City in 1979 to reinvent herself, she stays at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Although she arrives there through a series of mishaps, she finds herself at the iconic address that launched many a dreamer. Paulina Bren, recent author of The Barbizon: The…
For a reminder of how we got to the Black Lives Matter movement and a resurgence of caste systems in America, read We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White. Two college friends find divergent paths to address the inequities they become aware of in the persons of black housekeepers. Their worlds draw…
The January 2020 Golden Globes confirmed what the Emmys told us last fall—the search for meaning is alive and well. Fleabag skyrocketed to attention this year in a field of television programs replete with lonely characters dissatisfied with life—and looking for a better way. Meantime, the Pew Reports tell us those searching for meaning are…
