Category: Modern Fiction

A Good Animal

By Sara Mauer

Published 2026

Read Aug 2026

This is a coming-of-age type story, which this reader doesn’t usually read.  However, it was on the recommended reading list from her respected local librarian, so this reader gave it a go.  Fortunately.

This book is set in and around Sault St Marie, MI, a small (population 13,000) town on the Michigan/Canadian border.   The St Marys River separates the two countries here and contains the Soo Locks which enable a navigable path between Lake Huron and Lake Superior.  The author grew up and lives in Michigan’s “upper peninsula” and she know well what this setting means for the characters in her story.  She is also superb in describing the setting with respect to its landscape.  Both of these attributes enable the author to fully engage this reader. 

Everett Lindt and his family live outside of town.  They raise sheep, but this income must be supplemented by job incomes from both parents to sustain the family and the farm.  Everett’s best friend, Charlie, is in a similar situation, his family raising pigs.   Family farms still exist but most can’t make a living from the farm alone. 

We meet Everett and Charlie between their junior and senior years in high school as they are headed out to bale hay at Mr. Mason’s neighboring farm, the primary summer job for rural farm kids.  Everett convinces his mother that brother Jay, aged 12, can work with them, driving the raking and baling tractor.  Kaylie, Mason’s daughter, also a rising senior, and Mary, a new girl in town, bring the boys lunch.  Everett is quite taken by Mary while sparks fly between Charlie and Kaylie. 

A sizable part of the novel is spent at the county fair.  We follow Everett, Charlie, Jay, and Everett’s little sister Katie as each young person takes an animal to the fair where it resides for the duration of the fair.  Each exhibitor shows their animal in the annual market livestock show.  Everett’s hopes that his lamb will take the Grand Champion title are dashed when a new breed of sheep takes first and second place.  Everett tries to shield sister Katie from realizing that Fluff, the first animal she has prepared to show, will be sold for slaughter.  He buys her lamb, depleting most of the earnings from his own show lamb. 

As a side note, this reader just received the local weekly from her hometown in southeast Michigan with its supplement regarding the local county fair’s winners of various prizes for livestock and other 4-H projects.  The variety of non-livestock 4-H projects has decreased dramatically since this reader took projects to the fair several decades ago, potentially driven by the loss of potential project leaders now working full-time outside the home to make ends meet for the family.  The weekly had many livestock projects to highlight include sheep, cows, goats, and chickens.  The county fair and organizations like 4-H still play a major role in rural life and this author captures the atmosphere very well. 

Our protagonist, Everett, has no intention of going to college and leaving the area.  He is routinely annoyed by folks with assumptions that he will do just that as it’s the current norm for most young people in his area and in many rural areas.  He wants to stay in the area and take over and grow his family’s farm.  He decides that his family needs a new ram to improve their future chances in winning Grand Champion prizes and high prices for their livestock.  His father is not happy when Everett spends more of his livestock and hay baling earnings on Fluff and a new ram, but is also supportive of bringing in the new ram. 

Mary is a new girl in the area.  Her single father is with the Coast Guard, and the pair have moved frequently due to shifting Coast Guard assignments.  She is a rising senior and when she first meets Everett she makes it clear she’s going to focus on getting through senior year and leaving this town forever with college as her next step.  Of course, Everett does win over Mary, and the reader enjoys a summer and school year of love with them.  But their rural hometown also has limited health care support which eventually becomes an issue for them. 

This reader was enchanted by the author’s detailed and engaging account of a rural county fair and its role in the lives of livestock farmers’ families, and the depiction of life on a small sheep farm.  This reader was also impressed by the descriptions of mundane as well as unexpected events in Everett’s life and how he deals with them.  We readers are pleased that his view of his relationship with best friend, Charlie, evolves although we feel the pain associated with this growth as well.  This reader thinks the author’s presentation of Everett’s relationship with his parents and siblings is handled very well and is believable and moving.  Everett’s relationship with Mary was destined to end at graduation and the author’s handling of their situation is both delicate and raw. 

This reader is very glad for the librarian’s recommendation of this debut novel, also highly recommends this book, and looks forward to future work by this author. 

The Bright Years

By Sarah Damoff

Published 2025

Read July 2026

This fascinating and amazing novel covers the period 1979-2019 of the Bright family—mother Lillian, husband Ryan, daughter Georgette “Jette”, and mother-in-law Elsie.  It is told in three parts, the first narrated by Lillian, the second by Jette, and the third by Ryan.

Lillian tells us the sweet story of Lillian and Ryan’s courtship and early marriage.  The near saccharine nature of this part of their story led this reader to wonder when the other shoe would drop.  And it does.  The prologue sets part of the stage for this—Ryan’s mother had run away with small son, Ryan, from an abusive, alcoholic husband.  All through Lillian and Ryan’s courtship and early marriage, neither of them drank alcohol for no reason except that they didn’t see any reason to do so.  After the birth of their daughter, Jette, things change and Ryan starts drinking heavily.  When Lillian’s long hidden secret is revealed and he nearly hits his wife, he abruptly leaves them, completely separates from them, and leaves Lillian become a single mom, fortunately with a good mother-in-law. 

 A major strength of this novel is that it shows the story of alcoholism in this family from Lillian’s perspective in the first section, for Jette in the second, and Ryan’s story in the third.  All three perspectives seem quite believable.  Similarly, we also see the impact of Lillian’s hidden secret on everyone. 

Another strength is that the author will make the reader wish that the couple could have communicated more fully earlier, but the need to keep their secrets hidden got in the way and this reader found that to be quite believable too. 

Some reviewers call this the best book of the year.  This reader isn’t sure this is quite the case, but certainly strongly recommends this book.  It should make good fodder for serious book discussion groups.  This reader looks forward to more from this author. 

The Irish Goodbye

By Heather Aimee O’Neill

Published 2025

Read July 2026

Three sisters converge on their parents’ home in Long Island for Thanksgiving.  Cait, the oldest, is in from London with her toddler twins.  She’s separated from her husband and has recently lost her lucrative job although she is still throwing money around including paying for catering the family Thanksgiving dinner, replete with waiters serving fancy appetizers and wine.  Alice, the middle daughter, lives near her parents and has been helping them the best she can as they begin to fail and as their house is in need of more and more maintenance.  Maggie, the youngest, has brought her girlfriend despite her concerns that her Irish Catholic mother and the priest who attends all their family celebrations won’t approve. 

Add to all of this potential drama, we learn the family suffered a tragedy some twenty years ago precipitated by the death of a friend of their oldest child, Christopher (Topher) while he was on Topher’s boat.  The boy’s family sued Topher’s family for wrongful death and won which nearly bankrupt the family, a reason it’s been difficult to maintain their home properly.

While this reader enjoys family drama and readily scoops up books by Anne Tyler, this one never quite captured her full attention, possibly because this reader didn’t really like any of the characters.  Cait is self-centered, irritating, and more focused on a high school crush she invites to dinner than on her family or children.  After having an affair with a married woman, Maggie has finally found a fellow lesbian who would likely make a good partner.  But Maggie stepped out on this new lover with her old flame and is struggling with what to do.  Maggie is the character most impacted by her mother’s Catholic views and practices.  Alice’s feelings that her sisters need to start helping her more with regards to her parents and their property are most believable.  This reader also found the way the stories resolved a little too pat.

But this reader did stick with the book to see how the various characters might evolve and wasn’t fully disappointed.  This was a debut novel and a pretty good one in that regard.   

The Ferryman and His Wife

By Frode Grytten

Translated from Norwegian by Allison McCullough

Published 2025

Read May 2026

This fairly short (176 pages) book packs a quiet wallop.  Nils Vik wakes up one morning, alone as his wife has passed, somehow knowing it will be his final day.  He follows his usual morning routine and goes to his boat which he has operated for thirty-some years as a ferry between villages and other landing spots along his home fjord.  This ferry service has provided the most practical way to traverse the fjord and get to the various landing spots.  He picks up passengers along the way, the first one being his beloved dog, Luna, now deceased and who now has the power of speech.  Luna and Nils talk on and off all day.  In fact, all the passengers he picks up that day are deceased and all have played some role in his life.  We hear Nils think about his life as he makes the journey that day.    

This is a remarkable way to learn about our protagonist’s life—the various obstacles he encountered and the various joys he experienced.  The story rolls out slowly and in a non-chronological manner, so the reader gets to do some work to weave the story together. 

Nils sometimes talks with the passengers as well as Luna.  Mainly we hear his thoughts.  The voice in his head is calm and collected as one would expect from a Norwegian fellow.  He clearly has a few regrets, but he is generally content with his choice of occupation and with the way he has lived his life. 

The story of Nils and Marta’s marriage is a very slow one to be revealed and it’s not clear how it’s going to go and whether she will be a passenger he meets.

Read this excellent book to find the answers to these questions and enjoy both Nils’s story, contemplations, and the gorgeous scenery of the fjord around him. 

Long Island

By Colm Tobin

Published 2024

Read Feb 2026

This book is Tobin’s sequel to Brooklyn, published in 2009 about an Irish immigrant, Eilis, who comes from a small town in Ireland.    This reader read Brooklyn before she started this website so there is not an essay on that book at this site, but suffice it to say that interesting character-driven book prompted this reader to read the follow-up.   

This reader agrees with others that it’s not necessary to have read Brooklyn before reading this book, but this reader is glad she had read Brooklyn first as it provides some insights on a number of the characters and one feels you are rejoining their story, twenty years after you left them.   Additionally, Tobin throws in some characters from Nora Webster, a novel he published in 2014 that this reader discussed previously.

In Brooklyn, Eilis meets her future husband, Tony, an Italian American, when he comes to a dance in the Irish section of Brooklyn.  Their courtship is sweet and quick before they marry and get ready to pursue Tony’s dreams for them.   Eilis returned to Ireland for a visit shortly after her wedding and kept her marriage a secret during that visit. 

This book, set in 1976, twenty some years later, finds Eilis, Tony, and their nearly grown children living in a house in the family compound in Long Island.  Tony and his brothers are all in a contracting business together.  We find out in chapter one that one of Tony’s jobs afforded him an affair with a married woman.  That woman’s husband learns she is pregnant with Tony’s child, and he delivers this information to Eilis on her doorstep and the vow that he will drop the child off on same doorstep when he/she is born as he won’t have the child in his house.  So right out of the gate we have the setting for an interesting story of how this situation will be addressed.  Eilis takes advantage of her mother’s 80^th birthday to leave Long Island for her hometown in Ireland to let the situation brew so to speak. 

Most of the rest of the book takes place in Ireland as Eilis interacts with her mother, siblings, old friends, and most significantly, the man who had courted the (secretly) married Eilis in Brooklyn when she visited Ireland in that book.   For a little extra pizzaz, this man is secretly engaged to Eilis’s old best friend. 

All of this adds up to the possibility of a book filled with “drama” between all the parts and pieces.   In fact, this reader paused reading this book for quite a while because of this possibility.  However, upon returning to the book this reader learned that Tobin fortunately keeps the level of “drama” down pretty well and allows most of the focus on the difficult situation Eilis finds herself and how she responds to it, as well as how the other characters respond to her visit.  Recall this is 1976 and the culture of Italian American and Irish immigrants and village Ireland is not the same as 2026 culture.  As usual for Tobin, his focus is not so much on moving the plot along as in exploring the characters’ feelings about what’s happening.

Readers of Brooklyn won’t be taken by surprise by the ending of Long Island although they may not be happy about it.  You’ll need to read this recommended book to learn what this means.    

My Friends

By Fredrik Backman

Published 2025

Read May 2026

This reader loved A Man Called Ove and quite enjoyed Anxious People.  However, this one is not on my recommended list.

Backman alternates between two story lines.  The first involves Louisa, a teenager running from a foster home and a potentially budding artist, and Ted, a middle-aged man who has just lost the unrequited love of his life who happens to be a world-famous artist.  Ted and Louisa meet in an alley just after he has purchased the world-famous artist’s world-famous painting.  This story line follows Ted and Louisa as they travel via train to Ted’s hometown which is where he met the world-famous artist as a boy.    The second story line is about the four friends that appear in the now world-famous painting, their individual and collective histories, and in particular that summer when they enable the now world-class artist to enter the now world-famous painting to a contest for young artists. 

This reader tired of the author’s descriptions of each character’s terrible life and the dreadful things that kept happening to them.  It was repetitive and predictable which led to my lack of engagement.  This reader kept waiting to start liking a character but that never really happened.  The train trip seemed to be endless; were they crossing the country?  This reader thought it was within California? 

This reader “stuck it out” and finished the book and was glad it was over.

The Magician’s Assistant

By Ann Patchett

Published 1997           

Read March 2026      

This reader took much time to finally get around to reading this Patchett novel despite enjoying every Patchett book she previously read.  The title suggested the book would involve the business of magicians, which it did, but it’s not clear why that would be a bother.

Fortunately, this reader did finally read this book and was delighted to find that this novel, like other Patchett novels, had an engaging storyline, interesting characters, and universal themes, despite involving a magician. 

Sabine was the long-term assistant of a successful magician who has recently died.  She had also recently become his wife, although there is no need to think that she was involved in the death as a result.  Rather she had been in love with the magician for most of her adult life while she was his assistant despite knowing that kind of love wouldn’t be returned.  The magician married her to enable her financial security upon his death.  Enough background there—read the book to understand the relationship.

The book follows Sabine as she grieves his death.  His will includes bequeaths to his mother and two sisters, whom he had previously told Sabine were dead.  She agrees to a visit from these Nebraska residents to her in California where she and magician have lived throughout their career together. 

Much of the story centers on the developing relationship between Sabine and these family members as they each explore their desire to know the magician better as a large chunk of his life (before CA/post Iowa for Sabine and vice versa for his family).  It includes Sabine’s discussions with her dead husband’s lover’s ghost which are also undertaken to enable Sabine to know her husband better.  Sabine’s choices during the story are sometimes surprising to this reader but quite believable, as are the discussions with the ghost, leading the reader on a course not originally expected. 

So Patchett has found an intriguing story setting to explore grief, family relationships, and what it means to love. And this reader heartily recommends you read this book too.       

Saint Maybe

By Anne Tyler

Published 1991

Read June 2026

This reader adores Anne Tyler.  Anytime this reader needs a reliably durable book about universal themes, she seeks out an Anne Tyler book.  This one, as has been the case for several other Anne Tyler books, was found by this reader in a Little Library.  

Ian Bedloe is the youngest child of three, coming along as a surprise bonus baby.  The Bedloe family has enjoyed years of stability and has created traditions for various holidays that root them but don’t seem to strangle them.  Things begin changing when Ian’s older brother, Danny, brings home a woman, Lucy, and announces he will be marrying.  She isn’t from the area and seems a little older than Danny.  A couple of troubling aspects for the family are the very short time between meeting and marrying (mere weeks) and the presence of two children from a previous marriage, but the marriage moves forward.  Ian is pressed into babysitting the children which he usually enjoys but he begins to wonder what Lucy does while he is babysitting and he begins to think she is having an affair.  He also figures out that Lucy was pregnant when she married his brother as the calendar doesn’t work out that Danny could possibly be the father.  One fateful night Ian’s mother promises Lucy that Ian will babysit despite Ian’s plans otherwise.  Lucy doesn’t come home at the promised time and when Danny arrives home, Ian spits out his concerns about Lucy in anger. Danny proceeds to commit suicide.  Shortly thereafter Lucy dies of a sleeping pill overdose.  Ian’s parents take care of the children while they try to contact the father of the two (known) non-blood children.  Ian receives some spiritual guidance from the pastor of a small local church, with which he becomes a member, and he quits college to help his ailing parents and take care of the children.  The birth father is never found.  Ian becomes a loving father, his apprenticeship with a carpenter enables him to provide for the family, and he abandons his desire for a different life.  The book continues with what happens as the children grow up and launch, or not, into lives beyond the family nest.   

So the book adeptly considers the questions of moral responsibility, family obligation, self-sacrifice, dreams deferred, and more.  The characters are well developed and believable.  We understand Lucy’s actions but aren’t asked to condone them.  We understand Ian’s action but aren’t asked to condemn him for Danny’s death nor congratulate him for the actions he takes later.  Tyler just lays out the paths the various members of this family take and leaves to the reader to make any judgements.  This approach actually challenges the reader to be careful about making any judgement as some paths that one takes are sometimes driven by actions outside of ourselves. 

Kudos as usual to Anne Tyler for telling a complicated story in a simple but powerful way.  Once again.  This reader will continue to read Anne Tyler novels to experience her remarkable gift. 

Three Days in June

By Anne Tyler

Published 2024

Read March 2026

This is a relatively short book (176 pages) but it covers only three days—the day before, of , and after the wedding of Gail Baine’s daughter.  But in true Tyler style, the author commits some of the pages to enough of their backstory in a very efficient manner so that the reader can better understand the actions of the various characters and she can cover some universal themes. 

Sixty-one-year-old divorcee Gail Baine is the center of our attention.  She’s not having a great time as the wedding of her daughter draws near.  She learns the day before the wedding that she’s being replaced in her job, she has been excluded from the spa day that the mother of the groom will be attending, her hair appointment doesn’t have the desired effect, and her ex-husband has stopped by with a rescued cat asking to stay with her as the groom’s allergies prevent him from staying with his daughter.    Then her daughter has inklings from her to-be-sister-in-law that her fiancée has cheated on her.

So some potential drivers of cliched big drama, but as usual, Tyler guides us through a picture of a marriage that was and a discussion of how to deal with the planned marriage to be in an efficient and non-judgmental way.  She even sets us up to decide whether we think Gail and her ex-husband could or should get back together and makes the reader wait until the very end to find out.

Once again, a book that covers universal themes in a non-dated manner that will be accessible and readable for years to come.  Enjoy!