The World Without You, by Joshua Henkin
by Gregory Parker
Henkin’s briskly paced third novel follows the Frankel family over a single July 4th weekend, drawn together to commemorate their son’s death in Iraq.
Gregory Parker lives in Grass Lake, Michigan, with his family in the house they (mostly) built themselves. He’s currently the program coordinator for the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan. He has a passion for spy novels and won the fourth-grade young author competition with “Phony Agent 811,” the first in a planned series that was abandoned after the second title failed to win the fifth-grade prize. He has an M.A. in American History from Columbia University in New York. In his free time, he’s reading War and Peace in bite-sized pieces.
Henkin’s briskly paced third novel follows the Frankel family over a single July 4th weekend, drawn together to commemorate their son’s death in Iraq.
Germany’s literary superstar Günter Grass is obsessed with the past. His second memoir, The Box, challenges readers to distinguish between fact and fiction in latter half of the author’s life. His unconventional approach might undermine the memoir form, but the result is a compelling account of Grass’ compulsion to write.
Driftless is David Rhodes’ first novel in 33 years and the sequel to his last published work, Rock Island Line. Unlike the earlier novel, whose epic narrative focused solely on drifter-cum-farmer July Montgomery, Driftless offers a series of vignettes featuring the many residents of Words, Wisconsin, as they tackle issues of powerlessness, tragedy, and belonging – timeless human questions – in philosophical and heroic ways. What John Gardner praised as “moral style” was evident in Rock Island Line, but it really comes into its own in Driftless.
