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Fiction Books of the Year
1. The Road Cormac McCarthy
About two feet from my desk lies my copy of The Road, a novel I tore
through in September and, awestruck and shaken, suspected would be the
most powerful book I'd read this year. I have been aware of its
whereabouts ever since, keeping it near but out of sight, as if it might
do me some kind of harm. Which, in a way, it already has. I wish I could
not call up quite so clearly the postapocalyptic ash land evoked in
McCarthy's stripped-down, never-better prose; the icy rain that falls on
scorched trees; the desiccated apples. Earth has been leveled by an
unspecified calamity, possibly nuclear, and is inhabited now by
scavenging bands of humans, among them an unnamed father and son. Here,
a parent's love for a child looks more like curse than blessing. What
should this man tell his boy, about the past, about right and wrong,
about his duty toward other humans? Would it, perhaps, be a mercy to
kill him? McCarthy etches a realistic nightmare of near-total
destruction particular to our age. That the tenderest of loves might
persist in such a world makes it all the more unbearable. McCarthy is a
brave artist, and I revisit his masterpiece with admiration and dread.
2. The Ruins Scott Smith
Six soft young tourists partying their way through a Mexican beach
vacation hike into the backcountry to visit some archaeological ruins.
To reveal what they encounter on their ill-advised adventure would be a
spoiler, but it's fair to say that their skin-crawling fate fuels a
propulsive horror novel so unnerving and elegant it transcends the genre.
3. The Thin Place Kathryn Davis
Davis' sinuous novel aims to capture nothing less than the mystery of
existence. In the New England town of Varennes, the membrane between the
unknowable spirit world and the equally unfathomable physical realm has
worn away, and a 12-year-old girl is able to breathe life into the dead.
Davis tunes her narrative to myriad murmurings of the earth — an old
woman's lament, the songs of lichens, a police log, the dreams of a dog.
''There is probably nothing more beautiful and implausible than the
world,'' Davis writes. No, there isn't, and her fiction offers a gorgeous
reminder.
4. The Secret River Kate Grenville
A product of London's wretched 18th-century underclass, William
Thornhill — antihero of Grenville's thoughtful novel — is deported to
Australia as punishment for a petty theft. There, he spots a parcel of
apparently vacant riverfront and envisions, for the first time, a life
of dignity for his family. Of course, the riverfront isn't vacant and
Thornhill's dreams come with a staggering moral price tag. How can he
agree to it? Then again, how can he not? Grenville grapples with
unanswerable questions while grounding her story in a specific patch of
Australian earth, and the complicated peoples — Aborigine and
European — laying claim to it.
5. End of Story Peter Abrahams
Abrahams' smart, sparkling mystery follows Ivy Seidel, an aspiring
Brooklyn writer, as she begins teaching at a men's prison. A familiar
type — over-educated, single-minded, not entirely likable — Ivy soon decides her relationship with an attractive convict is the centerpiece of a
real-life romantic thriller. But does she have a clue about plot? Or
character? Abrahams delivers some delicious twists and that rare
thriller pleasure: a perfect ending.
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