A Novel Concept

By Michael Malone I ended up reading “Stand Your Ground,” about a Black teen who is shot dead by a white man, after visiting my mother. She read the Victoria Christopher Murray novel with her book group, was perplexed by the

By Michael Malone To read about Ireland is to read about how quaint it is. How green the landscape is, how warm the people are, how tranquil the vibe is. It is a much different Ireland in Michael Magee’s “Close to

By Michael Malone The jacket copy on There There begins, “Fierce, angry, funny, heartbreaking,” and that’s an apt description of Tommy Orange’s debut novel. It tells the stories of a dozen indigenous people who are headed to an event called the Big

By Michael Malone “Gonzo Girl” is about a recent college grad named Alley who, desperate to make it in publishing, takes a job as an assistant to a big-name but extremely difficult author. The author is named Walker Reade, and he

By Michael Malone Fredrik Backman’s “Anxious People” is set at an apartment showing outside of Stockholm. Eight strangers are checking out the top-floor flat, which has a nice view of a bridge, when a person with a gun bursts in. There was

By Michael Malone I break from my usual novel reviews to examine a timely non-fiction release, as Patty Lin’s “End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood” tells the story of a thriving TV writer who quits the business before it swallows

By Michael Malone “Scorched Grace,” a 2023 novel from Margot Douaihy, centers on Sister Holiday, a nun doing her thing down in New Orleans. Sister Holiday is not a typical nun, because there is a good chance you would not

By Michael Malone The Mosquito Coast is a look at a family that departs the U.S., their headstrong father fed up with America and its materialism and relocates to the Honduran jungle. Father Allie Fox is headstrong and brilliant, and a