This has been quite a year! Although it might seem beneficial for readers to have more time at home, the anxiety and general stress caused by the pandemic and tumultuous politics certainly challenged my concentration at times. I know for many readers it's also created severe practical problems. However, books have also provided the most wonderful respite with escapism and intellectual engagement with difficult issues. While I primarily read new fiction, I've also found great consolation in starting Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire series recently.

Maybe it's not a coincidence that some of my favourite books this year have been big 500+ page epics which have allowed me to fully immerse myself in their fictional worlds. Though I initially started reading it in 2019 and didn't finish it till May this year, “The Eighth Life” by Nino Haratischvili was the most dazzling family saga that covers multiple generations and wars. It was also a highlight of this year being able to interview both the author and translators of this brilliant novel.

Joyce Carol Oates writes so insightfully about the human condition and social issues in contemporary America. Her books often feel eerily prescient, but her most recent giant novel “Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.” is one of her most monumental achievements with its piercing depiction of grief and the timely way it opens with a racially-motivated incident where police use excessive force. The dynamic way she shows the various reactions of the McClaren clan really speaks to the formation of prejudice and how people can fear others who are different from themselves. Additionally, it's been one of the great privileges of my life to interview Oates about this novel and her more recent collection of novellas “Cardiff, by the Sea”.

“The Mirror and the Light” was one of the biggest publishing events of the year. Not only was Hilary Mantel's new novel one of the longest books I read this year, but combined with the first two books in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy (which I also read right before its publication) and it adds up to over 2000 pages. Although I found it somewhat of a challenge getting my head around some of the complicated Tudor politics, this was also one of the most wondrous reading experiences I had this year. Mantel deserves all the praise credited to her because her storytelling is utterly gripping, psychologically insightful and she has a way of making the past feel very relevant.

I had an odd hankering to read sci-fi this year and another new doorstopper I was enthralled by was Rian Hughes' astonishingly inventive novel “XX”. When a strange signal from outer space is recorded and a mysterious object crashes into the moon, an unlikely hero and his tech company uncover a secret extraterrestrial plan. The drama is whether it's meant to save all intelligent life in the universe or destroy it. But this novel is so much more than a wild tale about aliens. There's so much in this book about technology, physics, consciousness and the question of human progress itself. It also uses font in a way which contributes to the story itself making it a very playful novel as well as an edifying read that gripped me for the entire 977 pages.

Alternatively, a very slender novel which absolutely gripped me and has left a lasting impression is “Minor Detail” by Adania Shibli. A woman comes across an article that briefly mentions the rape and murder of a Palestinian woman in the Negev desert in the war of 1948. From there she embarks on a journey to discover what happened to her. This novel in two parts is about our connection to the past, people who are memorialised and those who are forgotten. The way the sections mirror each other and form this bridge with history is so artfully and poignantly done.

Being a book prize fanboy, I'm always curious to follow and read what's listed for the Booker Prize. For this year's award two titles really stood out for me. The first is shortlisted “Burnt Sugar” by Avni Doshi which describes one of the most tense mother-daughter relationships I've ever read about. The narrator Antara's mother is showing signs of dementia and she must become her carer when her mother never nurtured or supported her. This conflict is grippingly dramatised, but it's also such a thoughtful story about memory and how honest we are with ourselves.

The winner of this year's Booker Prize was “Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart, the heartbreaking story of a sensitive boy and his struggling mother in Glasgow in the 1980s. It's the most penetrating and moving depiction of alcoholism I've ever read. But for all its pain there are wonderful moments of humour and humanity in this story. I remember there's a hilarious scene where the mother and her friends get new bras. But I also love the way this debut novel portrays Shuggie's precociousness and the clever way it considers notions about masculinity.

While some curmudgeonly authors have been whining about the death of the “serious novel” this year, there have been many extraordinary debuts published which prove there are so many strong and powerful voices emerging in fiction. I had the honour of being a judge in the Debut Fiction category of this year's Costa Book Awards and one excellent novel from this list is “Love After Love” by Ingrid Persaud. This is the story of a single mother in modern-day Trinidad, her son and their friend Mr Chetan who form a strong family unit, but when certain secrets come out in the open it threatens to tear them apart. This novel made me laugh and cry like no other book this year. It's a story full of warmth, heartache and light and I absolutely loved it.

Like with the end of Hilary Mantel's trilogy, another tremendous literary multi-novel saga which came to the end this year was Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet. But, rather than mining history, Smith has recorded and reflected upon our current times in these books which have concluded with “Summer”. And it is the most glorious ending both in how it brings together characters from the various books and considers where we are now in this pandemic and in a politically divided society. Her characters are complex and nuanced. And her writing is full of so much heart and humour reading it is such a pleasure.

Another deeply pleasurable book I read this year is the great Edmund White's most recent novel “A Saint From Texas”. This story chronicles the lives of twin sisters who are raised in rural Texas in the 1950s. Although they are identical they grow to live very different lives: one commits herself to pious charitable work in Colombia while the socially-ambitious other sister climbs the echelons of Parisian society. This story charmed, bewitched and completely mesmerized me to the last page. It's great fun but it's also so insightful in how it considers family and the phenomenon of personality.

Finally, a novel I just read recently and found incredibly moving was “The Pull of the Stars” by Emma Donoghue. It's fascinating how the circumstances of our lives can effect what we get out of what we read. Unsurprisingly, this story of a nurse working in the maternity ward of a Dublin hospital in 1918 during the outbreak of the Great Flu hit close to home. It's incredible how Donoghue wrote this before the pandemic this year but so many details about how people and society responds to such an outbreak rang true. I've now witnessed in real life the patterns of behaviour portrayed in this novel. But, beyond its relevancy, this is a tremendous story about personal fortitude and strength amidst tremendous adversity and it's also a beautifully tender love story.

It'd be great to know if you have any thoughts or feelings about these books or if you're curious to read any of them now if you haven't already. I'd also love to hear about what books have consoled or inspired you during this very testing year.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. Joyce Oates.jpg

Since Joyce Carol Oates frequently writes about social and political issues at the heart of American society her fiction can often feel eerily prescient. But it's an extraordinary coincidence that in the week preceding the publication of her latest novel NIGHT. SLEEP. DEATH. THE STARS. widely publicised real life events would so closely mirror the book's prologue. The opening describes an incident where a middle-aged white man driving on an upstate New York expressway notices a police confrontation on the side of the road. He observes white police officers using excessive force while detaining a young dark-skinned man and stops to question their actions. In response the officers restrain, beat and taser the driver. The injuries he sustains eventually lead to his death. The video of George Floyd, a 46 year old black man who died as a result of being brutally restrained by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, has sparked widespread protests and newly motivated the Black Lives Matter movement. Public discussions regrading institutionalised racism, prejudice and privilege continue. These are also the pressing issues at the centre of Oates's epic new novel about a family whose lives unravel as a consequence of such a tragic event.

Of course, Oates's National Book Award-winning novel “them” depicts the events of 1967 in Detroit when the black community rose up to protest against the racist actions of the city's Police Department. History is repeating itself in a frightening way today as protests continue across the country, but a crucial difference is that the video footage of bystanders shows to the world how George Floyd's death was incontestably the result of police brutality. In Oates's new novel no such footage exists making the quest for justice painfully slow: “A lawsuit was like a quagmire, or rather was a quagmire: you might step into it of your own volition, but having stepped in, you lose your volition, you are drawn in, and down, and are trapped.” It's a timely reminder of how many cases of unjustified police violence such as this might never be proven and go unpunished. Oates also movingly details the long-term trauma survivors of such an attack experience wth the character of Azim Murthy, the driver the police initially stop.

The man who confronts the police at the beginning of the novel is John Earle McClaren, an upper class businessman and former mayor who is highly respected by the community. Following his hospitalisation, the narrative revolves around the perspectives of his immediate family members including his wife Jessalyn and their five adult children. John or “Whitey”, a nickname which persisted since his hair went prematurely white early in his life, was the strong-willed patriarchal figure who led his family. His abrupt demise leaves them at odds with each other and adrift in their own lives: “Without Whitey, a kind of fixture had slipped. A lynchpin. Things were veering out of control.” Though they are adults the children find themselves bickering over long-held grievances and rivalries because “No adult is anything but a kid, when a parent dies.”

At the same time, Jessalyn struggles to adjust to her new identity as a widow. Sections describing her deep grief are rendered with heartbreaking tenderness as she feels the persistence of her own life without her husband is a kind of absurdity: “of course you continue with the widow's ridiculous life, a Mobius strip that has no end.” Such expressions of the struggle to navigate the devastating wasteland of one's life after the loss of a longterm partner feel especially tender as there's comparable imagery and sentiments expressed in Oates's memoir “A Widow’s Story”. It takes time and patience for Jessalyn to understand that the story of her life can persist in the wake of this seismic loss and finally admit: “The widow wants to live, it is not enough to mourn.” It's exquisite and moving how Oates portrays the way Jessalyn continues to not only find new love but comes to understand that inevitable loss is a necessary part of love.

Jessalyn's children find it very challenging to adjust to the new demeanour of their mother and her new partner. Sophia, the youngest daughter of the family, states “If my mother changes into another person, the rest of us won't know who we are.” Their frequent monitoring of her life isn't only out of concern for her welfare but comes from an anxiety that their own identities will be destabilized as a result of her changing. The strange thing about families is that although they often give individuals a precious network of support through life, they can also inhibit freedom for personal growth as family members become accustomed to filling certain positions in relation to one another. Jessalyn herself observes of her children “They were all actors in a script who inhabited distinctive roles, that could not change.” The novel movingly charts the way these family members must learn to allow imaginative space for their siblings and parent to transform in accordance with newfound desires and needs.

Watch me discuss this novel with Joyce Carol Oates

Oates sympathetically portrays the challenges that the McClarerns encounter and the sacrifices they must make to grow into their new selves. For instance, one daughter has to dilute her professional aspirations in order to adhere to her moral beliefs about animal cruelty. Another son gradually allows himself to express the same-sex desire he feels towards another man despite believing his father would have been disappointed in him. Lorene, the stern middle-daughter, must learn to think of her coworkers as colleagues rather than dividing them into columns of allies or enemies. But one of the greatest struggles the three eldest children in the McClarern family wrestle with is their prejudice towards lower class and non-white individuals. Through their casual elitism and racism, Oates exposes how flimsy prejudice is as a state of mind and that prejudice most often comes from a place of wilful ignorance and misdirected anger. In this way the novel powerfully shows that it's not only the institutionalised racism found in certain sections of the American police force that needs to change, but also the hearts and minds of the country's citizens who categorize those who are different from them as others without even realising why they're doing it.

This review also appeared on Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies