New Releases by Iconic Authors
Some of my favorite authors release new books this year
This year is a stellar year for books, with new releases by some iconic authors such as Matt Haig, Ann Patchett, Maria Semple, Elizabeth Strout and more. All of these authors have previously produced bestselling literature. As a reader of award winning literature flying off the shelves, I was excited to see if these authors could do it again. Matt Haig known for Midnight Library, which sold fourteen million copies released Midnight Train. Ann Patchett the recipient of numerous awards including the PEN/Faulkner and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, released Whistler. Maria Semple who wrote the book turned film Where’d You Go, Bernadette, released Go Gentle. And Elizabeth Strout a previous winner of the Pulitzer Prize released The Things We Never Say. All of this makes for a busy time for readers with lots of choices.
The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
If you ask me my favorite author it would be Matt Haig. Why? He can tell a story that reads like a dream you don’t want to wake up from. I loved the Midnight Library because of what it teaches the reader as you go along for the ride. If you are busy thinking another path won by another set of choices made in the past, would have provided your best life, Haig implores that you might be wrong. He reminds readers that a different set of life choices could also bring about a different set of unforeseen disappointing circumstances you are not imagining. And maybe there is no one set of choices that is without some negative happenstance that tags along for the ride. This hard won point makes readers reconsider spending much time on regret seeing how our brains are trying to trick us in our daydreams.
The Midnight Train has something to teach readers too. At the end of his life the central character Wilbur Budd thinks:
But there are many ways to betray yourself in life. Some obvious—like thieving and fighting and getting chased by the police—and some subtle. Some betrayals look very much like success. But make no mistake—you’ll see—we betray ourselves.
Wilbur knows he could have lived much differently resulting in a much happier life for himself and his wife, Maggie. Now that he is at the end of his life he is seeing things clearly on board the midnight train and he wants to make changes. But isn’t it too late? Haig takes the reader on another journey again tackling regret and asking the reader to define what it means to live a good life. He is a master at addressing life’s big topics in the most imaginative way that makes readers want to dive deep. Unfortunately, it seems all life comes with some inevitable regret but if we can slow down to sit with life’s loses and missteps we might be able to fully process and minimize its implications in the present and future.
Whistler by Ann Patchett
As I read Ann Patchett’s new book Whistler I could not help thinking about what I know about Patchett’s own life as the similarities seemed striking. Ann Patchett’s mother married three times, just like Daphne Fuller’s mom Abigail in the story. And Daphne Fuller is married to a man over fifteen years older than herself without their own children but two stepchilderen as Patchett is herself. I kept wondering if the story was slightly autobiographical and if Patchett might have terribly missed something about one of her own former stepfathers. She has commented that the emotional journey she provides for readers is her own.
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After living through two of her mother’s divorces at a tender age, Daphne knows the drill by time stepfather number three comes along. She keeps her distance. But when she reconnects accidentally with stepfather number two she realizes just how much was lost in her life when he was banished from their lives.
Patchett is the master of quietly diving deeply into the inner lives of her characters. She radiates warmth as she exposes the failures and loses of Daphne, her mother Abigail and her stepfather Eddie. There were things she never knew as a child that come to light and help explain why her mother and Eddie ended so abruptly. This chance encounter with Eddie not only brings about some healing from childhood scars but grants Daphne a second chance at having Eddie in her life.
Go Gentle by Maria Semple
Where’d You Go Bernadette, which was fist a book and later a movie is a movie I’ve watched several times for its realities reflecting my own life. Bernadette as a mom loses herself and in the process is not always the best person to be around. Watching Bernadette navigate her life is both comical and tragic at the same time. I was captured by Maria Semple’s understanding about middle-aged women who have left careers for motherhood and the aftermath.
In Go Gentle, Semple dives into the traumatic wreckage of a woman’s career in Hollywood as a comedy screenwriter to see her reinvent and transform herself only to later be faced with her past again in the most unexpected way. Semple is the master at finding humor in characters’ lives as they struggle to be at peace making her books read like movies. Her characters always have an edge about them living in slightly odd circumstances providing for humorous interactions keeping you reading.
What I admire about her writing is the complexity of characters, comprehension of unique challenges women face and ability to laugh at it all. Yet, what might add that movie flare or keep readers coming back for more is the unbelievable circumstances the characters find themselves in. In Semple’s latest, Adora Hazzard finds herself at the center of a potential illegal international art heist similar to how previously Bernadette finds herself as a victim of a Russian identity theft ring but with maybe even more action.
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Many of Elizabeth Strout’s books are set in Maine where I lived for a few years. Hence Maine life to me always comes out strongly in her books. It is a place where the simple life is valued, pretentiousness is nonexistent and incredibly resilient folk fill the picturesque landscape. In Strout’s latest however we follow a middle-aged history teacher living in Massachusetts questioning his connections to those closets to him being his wife and son. But seemly satisfied with his classroom life as a teacher. Strout illustrates how although one might appear to have a perfectly normal existence they may be deeply struggling as Artie Dam is underneath it all. And how being married doesn’t necessarily equate to being fulfilled. Even married people can be isolated and estranged from their life.
The happiest turn in the book involves Artie dealing with an ugly truth concerning his family but in doing so actually becoming closer to his son. Strout explores how people living their lives together can leave so much unsaid defying real connection despite proximity. It also makes readers take on a deeper understanding of our most important relationships outside of the labels we place on them. Some have deemed the book depressing, maybe so. But despite all the messiness of life, all the mismatched marriages, Arite is still hopeful. His relationships with his son, students and friends is what sustains him showing readers that despite the awful that happens, which we have no control over, one can carve out some meaning which is true to yourself.
If you want to continue on Matt Haig’s dream-like journeys, Midnight Train will remind you of his style that readers first came across in Midnight Library. Ann Patchett’s Whistler seems semi-autobiographical as it mirrors many aspects of her own life and delivers a dive into the aftermath of divorce long after childhood. While Maria Semple once again cultivates her signature brand of storytelling combining a crazy set circumstances, a woman in midlife unraveling and later somehow not only surviving but thriving. And Elizabeth Strout keeps a New England teacher as her central character of focus in her latest novel as she has done several times before. These new releases extend the magic found in the authors’ earlier works so if you’ve enjoyed them before you will likely enjoy them again.
