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Contemporary Fiction

Migration ID
105

LaRose

Cover of LaRose
Louise
Erdrich
2016

After a tragic hunting accident in which Landreaux Irons accidentally shoots and kills his neighbor’s five-year-old-son, the recovered alcoholic turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition - the sweat lodge - for guidance, and finds a way forward. Following an ancient means of retribution, he and his wife will give their own five-year-old-son, LaRose, to their grieving neighbors to raise as their own. 
 

Chemistry

Cover of Chemistry
Weike
Wang
2017

A luminous coming-of-age novel about a young female scientist who must recalibrate her life when her academic career goes off track. She's tormented by her failed research--and reminded of her delays by her peers, her advisor, and most of all by her Chinese parents, who have always expected nothing short of excellence. But there's another, nonscientific question looming: the marriage proposal from her devoted boyfriend.

There There

Cover of There There
Tommy
Orange
2018

Twelve Native Americans came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. As we learn the reasons that each person is attending--some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent--momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything.  
 

The Immortalists

Cover of The Immortalists
Chloe
Benjamin
2018

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? In 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, four teenage siblings visit a fortune-teller who is reputed to be able to predict the date of a person’s death; this bestselling novel by Madison author Chloe Benjamin follows them across the country and through next five decades.
 

The Handmaid's Tale

Cover of The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret
Atwood
1986

This 1986 classic has found a new audience through a popular adaptation on Hulu. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate "Handmaids" under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred's persistent memories of life in the "time before" and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. 

An American Marriage

Cover of An American Marriage
Tayari
Jones
2012

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the lives of of people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control, who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.

Less

Cover of Less
Andrew Sean
Greer
2017

In this 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, after receiving an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's wedding, Arthur Less, a failed novelist on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, embarks on an international journey that finds him falling in love, risking his life, reinventing himself, and making connections with the past.

The Woman in the Window

Cover of The Woman in the Window
A.J.
Finn
2018

Anna Fox lives alone -- a recluse in her New York City home, drinking too much wine, watching old movies ... and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move next door: a father, a mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble -- and its shocking secrets are laid bare. In this gripping Hitchcockian thriller, no one and nothing are what they seem.