Barbara Kingsolver — whose 2022 bestseller, Demon Copperhead, transfixed readers the world over — returned with the much-anticipated Partita, a novel of music and what-ifs.
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bestseller → transfix → music
Fellow literary heavyweight Min Jin Lee, of Pachinko fame, questions the role of education in a family saga set in the influential world of for-profit tutoring businesses known in Korean as hagwons.
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Lee → question → hagwons
And a Pulitzer Prize winner, Hernan Diaz, imagines a dystopian future where the United States has fractured and electricity is currency.
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electricity → imagine → future
Our critics review these books and more this month.
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critics → review → books
- American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee
- One for Sorrow by Favel Parrett
- Ply by Hernan Diaz
- Too LA by Eve Babitz
- Spent Light by Lara Pawson
- Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li
- Finding Justice by Larissa Behrendt
- Partita by Barbara Kingsolver
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee
Fourth Estate
American Hagwon is both an epic yet intimate story of family and perseverance.
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Hagwon → find → family
Author Min Jin Lee balances social commentary with deep character work as the Koh family is buffeted across Korea, Australia and America by the winds of a personal betrayal and the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
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family → balance → betrayal
At the heart of this book is a conversation about education: what does it look like, who has access to it, what is it for and how can it change your life?
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it → look → life
In her third novel, Lee — known for her exploration of the Korean diaspora in works such as Pachinko — introduces the reader to the world of hagwons, Korean private after-school tutoring businesses or "cram schools".
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Lee → know → school
The reader, as well as the novel's characters, must grapple with the efficacy and purpose of these businesses.
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reader → grapple → businesses
Are they further perpetuating the pressure many children feel to get the best grades and entry into the best schools or are they spaces of learning necessary for success?
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they → perpetuate → success
Helen and John Koh sacrifice much for their three children, Bo, DH and Mido, who come to learn that educational success is fundamental to their identities and self-worth.
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success → sacrifice → identities
We follow the children as they go from students to teachers themselves, continuing to live by the tenet that education is the gateway to freedom from financial and societal vulnerability.
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education → follow → vulnerability
Lion, a hagwon owner in California who employs Bo and Mido, is desperate for his community to reject this thinking, proclaiming "our children should not have to save us".
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children → employ → us
However, he is met with exasperation and reticence by parents who want a better life for their children and see only one path.
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who → meet → path
Lee is a master of building rich, character-led stories.
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Lee → build → stories
We follow characters' journeys rather than a plot-driven narrative, showing how each member of the Koh family rises to the challenge when met with obstacles and barriers over the course of their lives.
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member → follow → lives
One for Sorrow by Favel Parrett
Hachette Australia
Award-winning Australian author Favel Parrett's long-awaited fourth novel for adult readers was conceived during a writer's residency in Trondheim on the shores of Norway's third longest fjord.
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novel → win → fjord
That intimate connection — notably with the landscape and seasons of that unique city, but also with its culture and people — pulsates through the prose, providing a rich backdrop to what deftly evolves into a heart-stopping tale of love and betrayal.
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what → pulsate → love
A two-hander told through the eyes of a child and his teacher, One for Sorrow opens with the now grown Einar returning to his hometown of Trondheim for a nostalgic sojourn.
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Einar → tell → sojourn
There he is persuaded to take an impromptu tour around his old school building where he is touched and somewhat perturbed by memories of an inspirational teacher.
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he → persuade → teacher
He visits his parents' and sister's graves but, we are told with an ominous thud, the teacher, Herr Kristiansen, "is not here".
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teacher → visit → thud
The story then jumps back to 1939, when Einar is at primary school.
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Einar → jump → school
Johan Kristiansen has struggled to find a teaching position in Oslo and is prepared to embrace a more parochial existence in this northern outpost, with its snowy and sometimes bleak beauty.
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Kristiansen → struggle → beauty
Johan is vibrant, progressive, young; so different to the hated Herr Berg he is replacing, and Einar is quickly enthralled.
Johan reads to the class and later shares Ernest Hemingway's work with Einar, whom he recognises as a fellow scribe.
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he → hat → scribe
A bond forms.
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bond → form → ?
But a clandestine passion has also been ignited between this charismatic teacher and Einar's mother.
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passion → ignite → teacher
That love affair is painted with erotic tenderness that morphs into fevered desperation when Nazi occupation changes everything.
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occupation → paint → everything
Short chapters, written with a lilting cadence and sophisticated spareness, build tension and a brooding intensity reminiscent of Parrett's Miles Franklin award-shortlisted 2011 debut, the equally compelling Past the Shallows.
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chapters → write → Shallows
— Juliet Rieden
Ply by Hernan Diaz
Picador
Ply, the third novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz, is set in an unnamed American city centuries in the future.
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Ply → win → future
While people still prosper in the countryside, life in the city — reminiscent of New York — is hardscrabble.
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life → prosper → York
Life expectancy and the birthrate are low, and health care is primitive — a minor wound can prove fatal.
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wound → prove → ?
In this dystopian world ruled by gangsters and militarised corporations, humans rely on their ingenuity.
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humans → rule → ingenuity
The novel's narrator is a pincher, someone who makes a living from stealing electricity from the grid — controlled by a single energy giant, Tensor, and patrolled by private police force CTS — storing it in a "brick" and selling it on.
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who → make → it
The pincher, whose mother was a type of DIY mechanic or engineer known as a tinker, has developed a new, more powerful brick that promises her financial security.
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that → know → security
The first 200 pages are a pleasing mix of world-building and plot, as the pincher reveals her past in flashbacks.
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pincher → reveal → flashbacks
She soon realises she is being followed — but by who?
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she → realise → who
In Part Two, the perspective unexpectedly shifts from the first to the third person as the pincher embarks on a project with Pola, an eccentric and, unusually for their world, mature-age scientist.
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pincher → shift → world
Here, large blocks of scientific exposition act as a brake on the narrative but soon the plot picks up again, as the pincher and Pola plan an ambitious heist.
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pincher → act → heist
Diaz's play with perspective enables him to explore the idea of universal consciousness as a counterpoint to the individualism of contemporary Western society.
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play → enable → society
He renders the world of Ply in lyrical prose, paying close attention to the unexpected beauty of the rewilded landscape.
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He → render → landscape
…and 64 more, not listed.
The Aporia