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In Chantal V. Johnson’s emotionally complex first play, AFTER TRAUMA (312 p., Little, Brown, $28), Vivian, the 30-year-old daughter of a Black father and Puerto Rican mother, works as a state-appointed attorney for minors in a public psychiatric ward in New York. A survivor of sexual abuse as a child, Vivian has a deep empathy for her young, often angry clients and a healthy skepticism of the system that keeps many of them in the hospital. When a friend comments that Vivian is “doing God’s work,” she replies with a critique of the American Psychiatric Association’s reference guide to diagnosing mental disorders: “Working hard to eliminate this DSM.”
Vivian’s personal life is dominated by her indecisiveness about social connection. After a family reunion in Connecticut, Vivian considers cutting her mother and brother to remove toxic memories and dynamics from her childhood. But alone in the city, Vivian hungers for romantic friendship and constantly exposes herself to heartache. “If … she could get stuck inside her double structure,” she thinks, “she wouldn’t need a family.”
Vivian’s past trauma is woven into the very fabric of who she is, compromising her relationships with her family and lovers as well as with herself (her eating disorder is a manifestation of her need for control after a terrible childhood). As for other people, he was “inclined to assume danger rather than good” and perceives real or imagined threats lurking everywhere. As she coaches her young clients toward inner strength and independence, the question arises whether she can move in that direction on her own.
At the immersive output, WHEN WE SEPARATE (357 points, Dutton, $27), Soon, Wiley brings two different perspectives to a young woman’s mysterious suicide. Yu-jin is an ambitious college student and creative spirit who thrives in South Korea’s competitive academic ecosystem. But despite her external perfectionism, she harbors hidden longings for her father, the country’s defense minister, that cannot be tolerated. When she lost her virginity in high school, “I knew what it was like to sin for the first time in my life, and I felt better than anything I’ve ever done,” she thinks.
While studying in Seoul, Yu-jin begins dating Min, a half-Korean man from Los Angeles who never wants to decide which world to invade. She never wanted to choose which half to be.” Devastated and suspicious by the news of his girlfriend’s suicide, Min searches for answers and discovers how little he knows about her. “Throughout their relationship, they worked tirelessly to maintain their emotional distance,” Wiley writes, “to avoid seeing each other for both: loss. spirits, desperate to belong.”
Episodes swing back and forth between lovers’ perspectives, Min’s episodes evolve in the weeks following Yu-jin’s death, while hers is in the “boring” city of Gyeryong, where her teenage years are traced, she’s always missed the “sand and edges” of life. capital. Knowing her tragic outcome doesn’t make her past any less urgent than Min’s current quest. This is a story about young people whose self-development is constrained, one by their inner pressure and the other by social expectations that conflict with their true desires.
In LITTLE FOXES CHALLENGE MATCHES (360 p., Tin House, $26.95), In Katya Kazbek’s moving debut set in 1990s Russia, 12-year-old Mitya witnesses the harsh economic realities of a collapsing Soviet Union, while at the same time undergoing a shift in her own identity. From an early age he was interested in women’s cosmetics and clothing; “The moment she saw her makeup face in the mirror, she felt a sense of peace and was able to forget how much she had failed.” When he finds his intolerant Afghan war veteran father, Mitya, first wearing lipstick, eyeshadow, and his grandmother’s and mother’s clothes, he hits her as if it were “able to beat his son’s femininity.” Another ex-military officer, Mitya’s older cousin Vovka, returns from the Chechen war as a violent alcoholic and sexually assaults 10-year-old Mitya.
Despite the horrors she endured, Mitya maintains the folkloric belief that a sewing needle she swallowed as a small child “will always protect her from harm and make her special.” Throughout the novel, it is the classic Russian fairy tale, namely death, of Koschei the Immortal, who “may not be killed unless someone breaks the needle”.
Fleeing from danger at home, Mitya wanders the streets of Moscow disguised as a woman and befriends the homeless Valerka, who was the first to accept Mitya in female form. When Valerka disappears, Mitya realizes that “all this is a rotten and terrible system where little people have no chance.” Seeking justice for his friend, Mitya gradually moves away from home, expanding his knowledge of the world and his place in it.
Annie Hartnett’s fascinating second novel, GORGEOUS ANIMALS (349 p., Ballantine, $28), It begins when a young woman named Emma Starling reluctantly moves into the house with her family. He arrives in his small, fictional hometown of Everton, NH, to come to the aid of his father, Clive, who has recently been experiencing symptoms of a mysterious brain disease. Emma was born with what those around her call “Charm” – “her hands weren’t like that”. spell-the magic, not quite, but they accelerated the natural healing process” – and the hope is that he could slow his father’s deterioration. But Emma, who sneaked out of medical school before she even started, fears she’ll lose her talent and be a disappointment to everyone.
Meanwhile, an opioid crisis is raging at Everton, and Emma’s brother Auggie and childhood best friend Crystal have fallen victim to addiction. Clive’s illness causes him to see animals and people who weren’t there, including the ghost of turn-of-the-century naturalist Ernest Harold Baynes, a true historical figure living among bears, wolves, foxes, and other wild animals. sprawling New Hampshire estate. Everton’s dead serve as the novel’s chorus, omniscient but impotent: “If we were given a little more freedom,” they complain, “if there weren’t so many rules and restrictions on being dead, we could help the living.”
As Clive’s condition worsens, Emma joins him in his obsessive search for the missing Crystal. Emma surprises herself by settling back in her home amidst the true ghosts of her past and finding joy and meaning in unexpected places.
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