Booklists · Beyond Bestsellers: Notable New Fiction Titles (July 2009)

Orphaned at a young age, a young man named “Not Sidney Poitier” inherits an obscene amount of money and stock in Ted Turner Enterprises. His windfall brings him to Atlanta, where he is adopted by the media mogul, but life isn’t easy for Not Sidney in this satirical expose of race, class, and identity in America.

Zimbabwean writer and international trade lawyer Gappah presents gripping and heartfelt stories set in the city of Harare, with its harsh contradictions of wealth and corruption, unemployment and political power. Calling her the “voice of Zimbabwe,” National Public Radio praises Gappah’s stories as “peppered with charm, with more than a bit of irony.”

After a mysterious plane lands at JFK, Ephraim Goodweather discovers bodies that have been drained of their blood, setting the stage for a horrific tale that pits man against a deadly vampire virus. Del Toro, Oscar-winning director of Pan’s Labyrinth, and Hogan, award-winning author of The Prince of Thieves, join forces in the first of a trilogy that “boasts a plethora of arresting images and many terrific macabre touches” (Kirkus Reviews).

Former boarding school friends Nick Carmody, a Sydney tabloid journalist, and Danny Grogan, a wealthy drug-addicted night club owner, embark on a dangerous game of mistaken identities after Danny wrecks his sports car. Paid a hefty sum to claim he was the driver, Nick is thrown into a melee of corruption, drugs, and murder in this Australian thriller.

When “the most hated landlord in San Francisco” falls from the roof of one of his buildings, the police quickly dismiss the case as suicide but retired cop Sam McGowan is convinced foul play was involved. Smarmy suspects—including slacker brothers selling marijuana, a torch singer who will confess to any crime, and a blackmailing B movie director—abound in this wacky and darkly amusing thriller.

Respected poet Sheck re-invents Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster as a modern day thinker, who philosophically reflects on art, science, Shelley’s creative process, and the “tyranny of the human face.” Booklist praises this complex, yet rewarding, first novel as an “empathic, virtuosic, haunting literary hybrid.”

In a moving, posthumous collection, John Updike assembled stories of thematic culmination, reflecting dimensions of human frailty, memory, isolation, regret, and mortality. The autobiographical title story begins with the narrator's father weeping as his son departs a small Pennsylvania town for Harvard; but years later, the worldly son discovers he's dry-eyed at the death of his father. An American literary master has contrived a lovely bouquet for his longtime readers. So long, Mr. Updike.

A charming tale of an Indian retiree and his young assistant who match likely candidates within the confines of caste, age, dowry amount (and even height and complexion!) required by arranged marriages. Humor, romance, and a feather-light look at the contemporary social issues of modern India set an exotic stage where “Zama sprinkles his lively narrative with morsels of everyday life and age-old traditions” (Booklist).