THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS by Elena Ferrante

In a moment of pique, Giovanna's father says that Giovanna's face has become like that of his estranged sister, Vittoria.  Having never met the much maligned Vittoria, Giovanna becomes curious and ultimately meets her aunt, who is weirdly attached to the wife and children of her dead lover.  Vittoria asserts that there are two sides to the argument that caused animosity between her and her brother, but Vittoria is certainly a force to be reckoned with, and may be a catalyst to upsetting Giovanna’s family harmony.  This book is a tale of undulating loyalties, as Giovanna discards and then reclaims friends with typical teenaged vacillation.  One symbol of these ever-changing liaisons is a bracelet whose history is complicated and whose ownership changes so frequently that it becomes a character in its own right, like a traveling garden gnome.  The most intriguing relationship in the novel is the three-way relationship between Giovanna, her friend Giuliana, and Giuliana’s erudite and charismatic fiancé, Roberto.  Giuliana may be beautiful, but she is no match intellectually for Roberto’s educated friends, whereas the much younger Giovanna is enthralled by their cerebral discussions.  I was reluctant to read this book because I really did not care for Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.  However, for me, this is a much better read.  Giovanna sheds one identity after another in an effort to find her true self, transitioning from acquiescent daughter to a rebellious one who dresses only in black and neglects her studies.  She eventually outgrows this phase, thanks largely to her admiration for Roberto, but she is only sixteen when the book ends, and I’m sure she has personal transformations still on the horizon.

PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi is a sweet and innocent young man who inhabits a world of fifteen people, thirteen of whom are dead.  The only other living person he has ever seen is an older man whom he calls simply The Other and with whom he meets for an hour twice a week.  During his waking hours, Piranesi wanders the many—perhaps infinite—vestibules and staircases of the huge structure that constitute his entire world, which The Other calls the Labyrinth.  Piranesi communes with birds, does not appear to have any concept of loneliness, and survives by burning dried seaweed and eating fish that float in with the massive tides that periodically, and quite violently, flood the lower floors.  The Other, however, obviously has other resources for food and clothing not available to Piranesi, who is so naïve that he doesn’t even question the source of The Other’s bounty.  When another living human appears in the Labyrinth, Piranesi begins to reevaluate everything that he believes to be true.  This disruption is particularly striking because the author has done such a remarkable job of creating a calm and serene atmosphere up to this point; Piranesi’s contentment feels perfectly natural.  When cracks begin to form in his perception of reality, the novel really picks up speed.  I don’t read many fantasy novels and even fewer that I actually like.  This is a notable exception.

THE KING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Arthur Phillips

Dr. Mahmoud Ezzedine arrives at Elizabeth I’s court as part of a Turkish diplomatic retinue in the late 1500s.  He springs into action when a baron has an epileptic seizure in the presence of the queen.  When the Turkish dignitaries return to Constantinople, Dr. Ezzedine is left behind as a gift to the queen, because one of the high-ranking Turks covets the good doctor’s wife.  Ezzedine is then regifted to the epileptic baron, converts from a Muslim to a Protestant, at least in theory, and changes his name to Matthew Thatcher.  (Another character changes names as well in order to keep his identity a secret, causing some minor confusion for this reader.)  Ultimately, though, Thatcher becomes a spy in a covert plot to determine whether or not King James VI of Scotland has truly converted from Catholicism. If he is now a Protestant and not just masquerading as one, he can succeed Elizabeth as King of England.  Thatcher arrives in Edinburgh with the assignment of learning what is in the king’s heart but succeeds only in becoming the king’s chess opponent—the perfect occupation for Thatcher, since he is a pawn himself.  The plan that he ultimately has to execute is diabolical with potentially dire consequences, but the doctor has been promised that if it succeeds, he can return to Constantinople, where his wife and young son may or may not be still awaiting his return after a decade.  I love how this novel inserts a bit of intrigue into what is historically a foregone conclusion with a jaw-dropping twist.  However, the less-than-breakneck pace of the novel draws attention to Ezzedine/Thatcher’s infinite patience but challenges the patience of the reader.

PRAGUE by Arthur Phillips

In 1990 Budapest—not Prague—a group of half a dozen twenty-somethings congregate at bars and jazz clubs.  All are expats, trying to make their mark.  John, a journalist for a local English-language newspaper, is the main character and has followed his brother, Scott, to Budapest, much to Scott’s dismay.  John has a thing for Emily, a girl Friday at the American embassy.  Mark is writing his dissertation on nostalgia and spends an entire day riding the mountainside cable car just to savor the view.  (He then imagines that he appears in a corner of all the tourist photos taken on the funicular that day.)  Charles, who interested me the most, evaluates local businesses for a private equity firm and decides to invest personally in a small publishing business after his firm passes on it.  (The almost 200-year history of this family-owned business gobbles up a pretty long chunk of the novel and serves as a device for the author to share some Hungarian history as well.)   In one of my favorite scenes, Charles is meeting with one of the press’s staffers, who extols the virtues of the small publishing company’s owner, while Charles contemplates pickup lines for later in the evening.  The interleaving of these two trains of thought is clever and hilarious, and I would have appreciated more moments like this.  The pace of the book is not supersonic and left me with a few dangling unanswered questions, although perhaps I just wasn’t astute enough to figure out what happened to a couple of characters who exited Hungary.

SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE by Claire Keegan

Why are so many atrocities committed in the name of religion?  I was not familiar with the Irish Magdalene Laundries until I read this book, and I still can’t believe they existed until the 1990s.  In this spare but heartrending novel, Bill Furlong, an Irish businessman, sees the Laundries’ child abuse up-close-and-personal when he discovers a girl freezing in the local convent’s coal shed.  Shocked and dismayed and uncertain how to respond, he goes on about his work, tortured by what he has witnessed.  He learns that his fellow villagers, including his wife, insist on turning a blind eye, afraid to rock the boat or wage a battle against the Catholic Church or even acknowledge the cruelty that is taking place right under their noses.  Many of the young girls who are basically slaves at the convent have been placed there because they became pregnant out of wedlock.  Furlong is especially sensitive to their plight, as his mother was an unwed mother herself but escaped a similar fate due to the kindness of her employer.  The main question, then, is will he assuage his conscience, or will he stick with the status quo.  This book brought to mind Paulette Jiles’ News of the World, which I loved, but this book is more chilling, because these institutions actually existed, as did the apathy that allowed them to endure for centuries.