New Books
Novels
Kaveh Akbar recommends
Beautyland (2024)
Marie-Helene Bertino
"Marie-Helene Bertino's delicious, uncanny vision throughout Beautyland makes everything feel brand-new-a roller coaster is 'a series of problems on a steel track,' chardonnay smells like 'pee and flowers,' death is 'merely a diminishment of one perspective.' Bertino's strangering prose delights with baffle and surprise, and the chapters are so propulsive one doesn't even fully notice the way she's subtly deconstructing the world. One page swiftly returns ubiquity to wonder, while the next reminds us that cruelty is a choice, that nothing is inevitable but death. It's impossible for a book to feel this fun and this urgent. Beautyland is a miracle. I'll be re-reading it forever."
Visitors also looked at these authors
