Being a former spy probably helps
The Thread's Must-Read
"Mudbound”by Hillary Jordan
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I have to imagine this title — far from inviting — gave Jordan's publishers some pause. They needn't have worried.
Published in 2008, the novel has sold over 250,000 copies and won the Bellwether Prize, an award Barbara Kingsolver created for novels about social issues from previously unpublished writers.
Somehow I missed "Mudbound" back then. If you did too, you'll find it sharply relevant to today's discussions about race.
Set at the end of the World War II, the book follows the newly-married Laura, who was previously convinced she was headed for a life of spinsterhood. She's unaware, however, that her husband Henry is eager to give up his career as an engineer to raise cotton on his own slice of the Mississippi Delta.
While Henry works in the fields alongside his black sharecroppers, it's up to Laura to make a home for them and their young daughters in a dilapidated and primitive farmhouse. "When I think of the farm," Laura remembers, "I think of mud encrusting knees and hair..."
In a 2008 interview with NPR, Jordan said the novel began as a short story based on the experiences of her grandmother. You'll wonder, as I did, how biographical the complications between Henry, his brother Jamie and Laura truly are.
The book is now headed for the theaters: "Mudbound" the movie, starring Carey Mulligan, is scheduled for release in November.
-K.M.
John le Carré goes back out in "The Cold" "A Legacy of Spies" by John le Carré
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Former CIA operative Valerie Plame says pop culture doesn't usually get espionage right — but le Carré comes close. His new novel is a kind of prequel to 1963's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold."
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Leaving the past behind — or trying to — in Rushdie's latest "The Golden House" by Salman Rushdie
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Salman Rushdie's newest novel explores the idea of reinvention in America, through an Indian family whose shady patriarch may not be able to escape his past, despite fleeing across the Atlantic.
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A black food historian explores his bittersweet connection to Robert E. Lee "The Cooking Gene" by Michael W. Twitty
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Michael Twitty's enslaved ancestors witnessed the Confederate general's surrender, the significance of which weaves through his new memoir as he seeks "culinary justice" for African-Americans.
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A novel that rises like a good loaf "Sourdough" by Robin Sloan
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Robin Sloan's latest is a beautiful, small, sweet, quiet book that takes a deep dive into the world of food, underground restaurants and markets, and the magic power of a good sourdough starter.
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John Ashbery, celebrated and experimental poet of the 20th century, dies at 90 Although his enigmatic poems confounded literary critics and peers who heaped praise on him, his abstract, modernist style reinvented literature for a generation of writers.
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With gentrification on the rise, a look at "Vanishing New York" “Vanishing New York" by Jeremiah Moss
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Bookseller James Conrad recommends a book that "covers the demise of New York City's diverse neighborhoods."
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A novelist finds echoes of 1939, today "The World of Tomorrow" by Brendan Mathews
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The author's books are set in the poor, black Mississippi community where she grew up, a place where, she says, "the past bears very heavily on the present."
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"Young people who do extraordinary things" are the norm in Marie Lu's YA world “Warcross" by Marie Lu
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The bestselling young adult author specializes in dystopian fiction. Her latest, "Warcross," is set in the not-too-distant future, and draws on Lu's time working in the video game industry.
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"A stunning book that's perfect for oddballs" “Falling and Flying" by Ben Loory
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Ben Loory's new story collection is dreamlike in the best way: both cheerfully surreal and cosmically unsettling, full of lovelorn cephalopods, discontented sloths and the occasional darker touch.
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A D.C. sex scandal, through female eyes “Young Jane Young" by Gabrielle Zevin
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Gabrielle Zevin explores the way stories change with the perspective of the listener.
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Don't miss Talking Volumes 2017 Get tickets to see Sherman Alexie, Jacqueline Woodson, Amy Tan, Ron Chernow and Dan Brown at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul this fall.
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How "American Assassin" took a long, twisting path to film A movie featuring the indomitable fictional terrorism fighter Mitch Rapp is about to hit movie screens nationwide — four years after his creator, author Vince Flynn, died from prostate cancer.
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