A new novel imagines what life was like for Atlanta's first black policemen

Kerri Miller's Must-Read

"Siracusa" by Delia Ephron Buy this book Don’t tell Steph Curtis — who schedules all of my author interviews — but I played book hooky last weekend. I should have been finishing the two novels and a nonfiction book on my "for work" pile, but I got snagged on Ephron’s inventive and unpredictable book about two families traveling together in Italy. New Yorkers Michael and Lizzie have joined Finn and Taylor and their daughter, all from Portland, Me., for a trip abroad. Both couples’ marriages are decaying — one from infidelity, the other from disinterest — and the travelers are struggling to grasp what life might be like on the other side of marriage. There is also the precociously beautiful 10-year-old daughter whom I’m convinced has a future as a serial killer, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. This novel, told from four points of view, explores all of the ways we inflict wounds on our relationships — something at which the Ephrons, Delia and her late sister Nora, are experts. In fact, there are echoes in “Siracusa” of Nora’s autobiographical novel, “Heartburn,” in which she chronicled the dissolution of her marraige to Carl Bernstein. At one point early in “Siracusa,” a character muses: “Couples collaborate, hiding even from each other who is calling the shots and who is along for the ride.” Delia says that when she wrote that sentence, she knew exactly where this novel was headed. But I didn’t and that’s why I lost a weekend to it. -K.M.

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The power of music to manage pain and illness "Waking the Spirit" by Andrew Schulman Buy this book Andrew Schulman, a medical musician, has written a book on the power of music to help patients manage pain and recover from illness. More

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