At the edge of ourselves, and just beyond, is where the transformation begins.
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (Knopf, $25.95)
Elementary schoolteacher Nora Eldridge reveals how at the heart of every dutiful, nice woman lies a beating knot of anger. This repressed rage and resentment is not socially acceptable to acknowledge, so most women relegate her to the Woman Upstairs. Nora’s regimented, nice-girl life transforms when Reza Shahid arrives in her third-grade class. Nora is intoxicated by the worldly and passionate Shahids and finds herself folded easily into their family life and her shared artistic endeavors with Reza’s mother Sirena. As Nora’s infatuation grows, she discovers the risks involved in vulnerability, along with the possibilities of a life more fully lived. Messud’s meditation on a modern woman’s struggle to reconcile her interior emotions with her exterior life is complex and thought-provoking in this bracing novel of passion and betrayal.
When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man by Nick Dybek (Riverhead Press, $16.00)
Dybek’s debut is set in the fictional Washington State town of Loyalty Island, a coastal community whose main industry is crabbing. Fourteen-year-old Cal Bollings has watched his father and the other men of Loyalty leave year after year for Alaska’s waters, working for boating business owner John Gaunt. When Gaunt dies and leaves the business to his outsider son, Richard, Cal’s mother leaves town, stranding Cal to be looked after by his friend Jamie’s addled mother. When Richard heads out on the expedition with the men and disappears at sea, Cal learns that the men of Loyalty will stop at nothing to keep their livelihood. In the process, he and Jamie unwittingly uncover a secret so combustible it could tear their town apart. In understated prose, and with atmospheric details of the Northwest, Cal’s coming-of-age rapidly devolves into a tale of morality.
James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (Picador, $22.00)
Who was James Tiptree, Jr., and why did Alice B. Sheldon see fit to invent him? This question still haunts the science fiction and feminist literary universe. Phillips’ biography of this remarkable woman is, as writer Jonathan Lethem attests, “an incredible life, done elegant justice.” Raised in well-connected Chicago society, Alice Bradley spent much of her childhood on safari in Africa where her parents explored and hunted big game. Alice married and divorced young and joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps service during WWII, going on to work for the CIA, where she met her second husband, Ting Sheldon. During her post-doctoral work in psychology, Alice began writing science fiction stories, publishing them under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. Tiptree’s short stories were bold explorations of science fiction tropes, sex and gender. Phillips truly does elegant justice to a fascinating woman whose rich inner life and struggles illuminate the way for future women and writers.
