Heller McAlpin

Two years ago, Cat Brushing, a collection of provocative stories about older women still very much in touch with the sensual side of life, put Jane Campbell on the map.

The story takes place in Newark, over the course of a single day in 1957, which we experience from the two spouses' alternating points of view. Jessica Anthony's novel deserves to become a classic.

In her fierce second novel, Sarah Manguso writes a requiem for a failed relationship from the point of view of a survivor, the wife left behind.

In her latest work, Cusk probes questions about the connections between freedom, gender, domesticity, art, and suffering.

Jill Ciment wrote about a relationship she had with a teacher when she was very young – that turned into a marriage – in Half a Life. Now, eight years after his death at 93, she reconsiders their relationship in light of the #MToo movement.

Like her other books, French writer Valérie Perrin's third novel to be translated into English, centers on the life-changing magic of friendships across generations.

Set during a uniquely stressful summer for one Nantucket family, Gabriella Burnham's second novel highlights the strong bonds between a mom and her daughters.

In a heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, "Brooklyn," Colm Tóibín's handles uncertainties and moral conundrums with exquisite delicacy, zigzagging through time to a devastating climax.

Russell Perreault hired Crosley when she was 25 and the two became very close. He died by suicide in 2019. Her first full-length book of nonfiction is a noteworthy addition to the literature of grief.

An eloquent indictment of the effects of the massacre, dislocation and forced assimilation of Native Americans, it is also a heartfelt paean to the importance of family and of ancestors' stories.