Weekly Words about New Books in
Independent Bookstores
January 16, 2022
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All-Too-Real Novel Imagines America Retraining Bad Mothers, and Determined Investigation Sheds New Light on Anne Frank |
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The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. The buzz is already building for this chilling debut novel, a near-future imagining of an America in which one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance as she is "retrained" to be a suitable parent.
Protagonist Frida Liu, a 39-year-old Chinese-American single mother in Philadelphia, loses custody of her 18-month-old daughter Harriet after she leaves the toddler home alone for two hours. To regain custody, Frida must spend a year at a newly-created institution designed to rehabilitate bad mothers. There she is given a lifelike toddler doll - equipped with artificial intelligence to boot - and the assignment to improve her parenting skills and hone her maternal instincts enough to convince a judge that she deserves a second chance with her Harriet.
Sound creepy? You bet. Worse yet, the idea of the government monitoring and controlling the behavior of mothers through technology seems a bit too close to reality for comfort, especially given the current climate regarding women's right to choose. This review from Vogue underscores that point: “The School for Good Mothers picks up the mantle of writers like Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro, with their skin-crawling themes of surveillance, control, and technology; but it also stands on its own as a remarkable, propulsive novel. At a moment when state control over women’s bodies (and autonomy) feels ever more chilling, the book feels horrifyingly unbelievable and eerily prescient all at once.”
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The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan. This intriguing new book will undoubtedly make headlines, given the nature of its subject and conclusions. Using new technology, recently discovered documents, and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team — led by an obsessed retired FBI agent — says they have finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?
Thanks to The Diary of a Young Girl, the story of Anne Frank is well-known to millions — a journal-writing teenager living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. Yet despite the many works devoted to Anne’s story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years — and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door.
But in 2017, retired FBI agent Vincent Pankoke and a group of expert investigators took on one of the world's best known cold cases, bringing modern forensic science and criminology to bear. They pored over tens of thousands of pages of documents — some never before seen — and interviewed scores of descendants of people familiar with the Franks. This book is the story of their mission, and author Sullivan introduces readers to the investigators, explains the behavior of both the captives and their captors, and profiles a group of suspects. All the while, she vividly brings to life wartime Amsterdam: a place where no matter how wealthy, educated, or careful you were, you never knew whom you could trust.
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Justice-Seeking Lone Hero Returns in Tense Page-Turner |
The Runaway by Nick Petrie. I've been a fan of thriller writer Petrie and his Jack Reacher-esque Marine vet Peter Ash, who fights his PTSD along with bad guys, since the debut of The Drifter. That was back in 2016, and Petrie has kept the pedal to the metal ever since. And by the way, I'm not the only one noting the Reacher comparison - a reviewer for Entertainment Weekly said, "For me, no crime-fiction character has ever measured up to Jack Reacher--until, that is, I met Peter Ash." And no less than Jack Reacher creator Lee Child himself has called Ash "the real deal."
The Runaway is the seventh installment, and Ash finds himself in yet another page-turning predicament that will tax his many physical and mental skills to the limit. Here's a description:
Ash is driving through northern Nebraska when he encounters a young pregnant woman alone on a gravel road, her car dead. Peter offers her a lift, but what begins as an act of kindness soon turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse chase across the lonely highways with the woman's vicious ex-cop husband hot on their trail. The frightened wife has seen something she was never meant to see . . . but protecting her might prove to be more than Peter can handle. To save the woman and himself, our hero must use everything he has learned during his time as a Marine, including his knowledge of human nature, to escape a ruthless killer. The result is what Publishers Weekly has called an "adrenaline-fueled ride will keep readers turning the pages."
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WHY THE COLUMN?
Hi, I'm Hut Landon, and I'm a bookseller in an independent bookstore in BerkeIey, CA.
My goal here is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what indie booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; HUT'S PLACE is meant to be a quick, fun read for book buyers. If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box to add a short message.
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