The Novel Is In

“We read to know we are not alone.”

-C.S. Lewis

Story-telling is perhaps the oldest art form. It can manifest as theatre or oral history, memoirs or novels, television or movies, songs or poetry. There is no end to the creativity through which a story can reach us or the empathy it can inspire. A well told story is powerful.

With the technological advancements of the 2020s, the public can relive favored stories with a production value like never before. Stories like Little Women, Westside Story, Mulan, Dune, Emma and plenty more are getting the modern upgrade. These stories have been moving the hearts and minds of people for decades or even centuries in one form or another. How marvelous that they continue to intrigue!

And yes, some stories are as poignant as ever, proving the constancy of human nature. But there are also new stories and new voices that need to be heard. Whether it be watching a new adaptation of an old story I love or re-reading a favorite book for the umpteenth time, I’ll admit, I am the first person to lean on an old faithful instead of reaching for something new. But over the past few months, the ladies of my book club have chosen modern novels (something I never considered on my own) and I am here to testify they are worth reading. Not only are the themes timely and deserving of consideration, the prose is beautiful and compelling.

It may take an average of 65 million dollars to produce a quality movie, but a well-written book is priceless. Don’t take my word for it, give these novels a try and you might just discover a new favorite.

The Vanishing Half

by Brit Bennett

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of the Vignes family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.
Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

Strange Fruit

by Lillian Smith

Strange Fruit is set in the imaginary small south Georgia town of Maxwell. Tracy Deen, son of middle-class but pretentious white parents, has just returned from a stint in the army. He and Nonnie Anderson, a younger, pretty, light-skinned African American who has been in love with him since she was a very young girl, immediately find themselves in each other's arms. Every southern social force—racism, religious fundamentalism, class conflict—is at war in the dilemma and dreams of the two protagonists, and the consequence is nothing but tragedy for everyone.

This 1944 novel of interracial love was denounced in many places for its "obscenity," although sex is barely mentioned. Massachusetts banned it for a short time; so did the U.S. Post Office. Author Lillian Smith was the first white southerner of any prominence to denounce not just racism but segregation. From her home atop Old Screamer Mountain near Clayton, Georgia, Smith knew that many of her neighbors had bought the book, but in public they snubbed her.