CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note ...... vii Complete Annotated List of Contents ...... ix Contributing Reviewers ...... xxix

21 Lessons for the 21st Century—Yuval Noah Harari ...... 1 The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Stuart Turton ...... 6

All We Ever Wanted—Emily Giffi n ...... 11 American Histories—John Edgar Wideman ...... 15 American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin—Terrance Hayes ...... 19 An American Marriage—Tayari Jones ...... 23 Asymmetry—Lisa Halliday ...... 28

Baby Teeth—Zoje Stage ...... 32 Back Talk—Danielle Lazarin ...... 36 Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup—John Carreyrou . . . . 40 Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”—Zora Neale Hurston ...... 45 Beastie Boys Book—Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz ...... 50 Bellewether—Susanna Kearsley ...... 54 Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found—Gilbert King ...... 58 The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table—Rick Bragg . . . . 62 Brass—Xhenet Aliu ...... 66 Brother—David Chariandy ...... 70

Call Me American—Abdi Nor Iftin with Max Alexander ...... 75 Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays)— Rebecca Solnit ...... 79 Calypso—David Sedaris ...... 83 A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety—Donald Hall ...... 88 The Carrying—Ada Limón ...... 92 Churchill: Walking with Destiny—Andrew Roberts ...... 97 Circe—Madeline Miller ...... 102 Clock Dance—Anne Tyler ...... 106

The Day the Sun Died—Yan Lianke ...... 111 The Death of Mrs. Westaway—Ruth Ware ...... 115 The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast— Michael Scott Moore...... 119 Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan— Steve Coll ...... 124

iii MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2019 Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America— Beth Macy ...... 129

Educated—Tara Westover ...... 134 The Emissary—Yoko Tawada ...... 139 Empire of Sand—Tasha Suri ...... 144 Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance— Alex Hutchinson ...... 148 Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress— Steven Pinker ...... 153 Eternal Life—Dara Horn ...... 158 Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World—Eileen McNamara ...... 162

A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America—T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong ...... 166 Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind— Michael Massing ...... 171 The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century—Kirk Wallace Johnson ...... 176 Feel Free—Zadie Smith ...... 181 The Female Persuasion—Meg Wolitzer ...... 185 Fight No More—Lydia Millet ...... 189 The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq—C. J. Chivers . . 194 Flights—Olga Tokarczuk ...... 199 Florida—Lauren Groff ...... 203 Flunk. Start.: Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology—Sands Hall . . . . . 207 The Flying Mountain—Christoph Ransmayr ...... 212 Force of Nature—Jane Harper ...... 216 Frankenstein in Baghdad—Ahmed Saadawi ...... 221 The Friend—Sigrid Nunez ...... 225 From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia— Michael McFaul ...... 229 Fruit of the Drunken Tree—Ingrid Rojas Contreras ...... 234 Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times—Alan Walker ...... 239 The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny beyond Earth—Michio Kaku ...... 244

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After— Clemantine Wamariya with Elizabeth Weil ...... 249 Girls Burn Brighter—Shobha Rao ...... 254 Give Me Your Hand—Megan Abbott ...... 258 God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State— Lawrence Wright ...... 262 The Great Alone—Kristin Hannah ...... 266

iv CONTENTS Grist Mill Road—Christopher J. Yates ...... 271

Heads of the Colored People—Nafi ssa Thompson-Spires ...... 276 A History of Judaism—Martin Goodman...... 280 Home after Dark—David Small ...... 285 How Hard Can It Be?—Allison Pearson ...... 289 How Long ’til Black Future Month?—N. K. Jemisin ...... 294 How to Be Safe—Tom McAllister ...... 298 How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence— Michael Pollan ...... 302 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel—Alexander Chee ...... 307

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer—Michelle McNamara ...... 311 The Immortalists—Chloe Benjamin ...... 316 In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin— Lindsey Hilsum ...... 321 Indecency—Justin Phillip Reed ...... 326 Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man—Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic ...... 330 Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness—Alisa Roth ...... 335

Junk—Tommy Pico ...... 340

The Kiss Quotient—Helen Hoang ...... 345

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CONTENTS

Complete Annotated List of Contents ...... vii

The Labyrinth of the Spirits—Carlos Ruiz Zafón ...... 351 Lake Success—Gary Shteyngart ...... 355 The Largesse of the Sea Maiden—Denis Johnson ...... 359 Last Stories—William Trevor ...... 363 Lawn Boy—Jonathan Evison ...... 368 Leadership in Turbulent Times—Doris Kearns Goodwin ...... 372 The Library Book—Susan Orlean ...... 377 The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife 1965–2005—Zachary Leader . . . . 382 The Life to Come—Michelle de Kretser ...... 387 Little—Edward Carey ...... 392 Look Alive Out There—Sloane Crosley ...... 396 A Lucky Man—Jamel Brinkley ...... 401

The Mars Room—Rachel Kushner ...... 406 The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War—Benn Steil ...... 410 The Maze at Windermere—Gregory Blake Smith ...... 415 The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror—Daniel Mallory Ortberg . . . . 420 Milkman—Anna Burns ...... 424 The Monk of Mokha—Dave Eggers ...... 429 A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History—Jeanne Theoharis ...... 434

A Necessary Evil—Abir Mukherjee ...... 438 The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke—Jeff rey C. Stewart ...... 443 Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture—Roxane Gay...... 447 November Road—Lou Berney ...... 451

The Other Woman—Sandie Jones ...... 456 Our House—Louise Candlish ...... 460 The Overstory—Richard Powers ...... 464

The Perfect Mother—Aimee Molloy ...... 469 The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World— Simon Winchester ...... 474 Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces—Michael Chabon ...... 479 Promise Not to Tell—Jayne Ann Krentz ...... 483

The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath—Leslie Jamison ...... 487 Reporter—Seymour M. Hersh ...... 492

iii MAGILL’S LITERARY ANNUAL 2019 The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World— Steve Brusatte ...... 498 The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam— Max Boot ...... 502 Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon—Robert Kurson ...... 507 Room to Dream—David Lynch and Kristine McKenna ...... 512 Rust & Stardust—T. Greenwood ...... 517 Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life—Jane Sherron De Hart ...... 522

The Seabird’s Cry: The Lives and Loves of the Planet’s Great Ocean Voyagers— Adam Nicolson ...... 527 She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity— Carl Zimmer ...... 531 So You Want to Talk about Race—Ijeoma Oluo ...... 536 The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels—Jon Meacham . . . . 540 Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece—Michael Benson ...... 545 Spinning Silver—Naomi Novik ...... 550 The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War— Ben Macintyre ...... 554 A State of Freedom—Neel Mukherjee ...... 559 Still Me—Jojo Moyes ...... 564 The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row— Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin...... 568 Sunburn—Laura Lippman ...... 572

Tailspin: The People and Forces behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall— and Those Fighting to Reverse It—Steven Brill ...... 577 The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life—David Quammen ...... 582 Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say— Kelly Corrigan ...... 587 Then She Was Gone—Lisa Jewell ...... 591 There There—Tommy Orange ...... 596 These Truths: A History of the United States—Jill Lepore ...... 601 This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black Female, and Feminist in (White) America—Morgan Jerkins ...... 606 Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge and the Rise of Gay Liberation—Robert W. Fieseler ...... 610 Tomorrow Will Be Diff erent: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality— Sarah McBride ...... 614 Trick—Domenico Starnone ...... 618

Virgil Wander—Leif Enger ...... 623

iv CONTENTS Waiting for Eden—Elliot Ackerman ...... 627 Warlight—Michael Ondaatje ...... 631 Washington Black—Esi Edugyan ...... 635 We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights— Adam Winkler ...... 640 When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir— Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele ...... 644 The Widows of Malabar Hill—Sujata Massey ...... 649 Winter—Ali Smith ...... 653 The Witch Elm—Tana French ...... 657 The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World—Charles C. Mann ...... 662 The Woman in the Window—A. J. Finn ...... 666 The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote—Elaine Weiss ...... 671 The Word Is Murder—Anthony Horowitz ...... 675

You Think It, I’ll Say It—Curtis Sittenfeld ...... 680

Category Index ...... 685 Title Index ...... 691 Author Index ...... 695

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