Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters (Random House). Reviewed by Nick Havey. “Torrey Peters’ electrifying debut, Detransition, Baby, was one of my favorite novels of 2021, and I wasn’t alone: It was lauded in almost every review it received. Naturally, I was thrilled when her next book, Stag Dance, a collection of stories wrapped around a novella, was announced. And though such a thing felt impossible when I started it, I just might’ve enjoyed Peters’ second book more than her first…All in all, Stag Dance is a well-crafted book with a unique structure that delivers on two fronts: It’s entertaining for lay readers and could easily be taught to undergrads in a gender-studies course this very day.”

The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura: A Novel by Tierno Monénembo; translated by Ryan Chamberlain (Schaffner Press). Reviewed by Anne Eliot Feldman. “With author Monénembo himself having fled Touré’s tyranny, The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura offers an unflinching look at the psychic toll of international exile. ‘It’s not enough just to be yourself,’ remarks Véronique at one point, ‘you have to become yourself.’ In the face of unspeakable pain, she and Madame Corre bear witness, sharing a glass of Sancerre and lifting each other up. You won’t forget them.”

The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family by Obbie Tyler Todd (LSU Press). Reviewed by Charles Caramello. “An ideal group biography tells the life stories of multiple individuals and, concurrently, the story of the group those individuals constitute, animating the whole as a single, vital, and organic entity. Since such a biography, in addition, must demonstrate that both the individuals and the group warrant our attention, it often seeks to show — if circumstances permit — how their stories both shaped and were shaped by contending cultural forces during a roiled historical moment. Obbie Tyler Todd’s absorbing portrait, The Beechers: America’s Most Influential Family, ‘a true chronological biography of the entire Beecher family,’ meets the challenge.”

Potomac Fever: Reflections on the Nation’s River by Charlotte Taylor Fryar (Bellevue Literary Press). Reviewed by Chris Rutledge. “Potomac Fever is, first of all, a love note to the Washington, DC, region. Fryar takes to the water itself like a lover, sharing how much she endeavors to ‘walk with the river and even talk to it.’ In discussing her excursions to explore the habitat, she adopts a quasi-religious fervor, reporting that ‘with every year, I find I need this ritual more than I did the last.’ She is nourished by her presence in this world. But Fryar does more, looking at the intersection of racism and the environment and asking the important question, ‘Who is nature for?’ As she notes, the DMV is a ‘regional ecosystem of intersecting policies, histories, and displacements.’”

Wild Dark Shore: A Novel by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron Books). Reviewed by Patricia S. Gormley. “Wild Dark Shore contains many of the hallmarks of classic gothic literature: gloom and decay, dreams and omens, death, seclusion, psychological distress, and nature as a force. But McConaghy reinvents these elements, placing them within the framework of contemporary concerns about climate catastrophe and the lingering effects of loss. The island itself is a dark presence; in the early 1800s, oilers slaughtered Shearwater’s entire seal population and most of its penguins. Fen feels the land’s anger as she passes by the aged, rusting cauldrons once used to extract blubber. Rowan observes that the island ‘shrieks’ and that it is ‘terribly haunted.’ And Orly says the ‘winds carry ghosts upon them.’”

Beasts by Ingvild Bjerkeland; translated by Rosie Hedger (Levine Querido). Reviewed by Priyanka Champaneri. “Bjerkeland walks a careful line between being mindful of her audience’s age while refusing to shrink from the truth. Filled with tension and a few heart-pounding moments, Beasts never fully strays into the darker recesses like its postapocalyptic adult cousins The Road or I Who Have Never Known Men, yet it also resists easy answers or a storybook ending. It’s a balance that clearly works: The author’s biography notes that 10,000 schoolchildren chose the novel for Norway’s top bookseller’s prize. With its propulsive prose and its central siblings whose survival is powered by empathy, Beasts is likely to garner praise from far more readers than that in the United States and beyond.”

Heartwood: A Novel by Amity Gaige (Simon & Schuster). Reviewed by Jennifer Bort Yacovissi. “Gaige ratchets up the suspense, making the pages fly without ever sacrificing the emotional center of the story, which is the exploration of how our relationships shape us. Santo’s belligerent, belittling father made him determined to prove his mettle, while Lt. Bev’s fragile, faltering mother forged her into the one responsible for the family and, later, for a large chunk of the Warden Service. Lena, meanwhile, has managed to fully alienate her own daughter by tamping down a love so powerful, she feared it would overwhelm her.”

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