Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Six recent books on the lives of others

Joyce Carol Oates's new book is DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense. At The Week magazine she tagged "six recent works of fiction that affirm the capacity of great authors to imagine their way into others' lives," including:
Version Control by Dexter Palmer

Version Control is perhaps the strangest fictional work of appropriated voices and subjects. It's set in a surreal near future — or several near futures — as well as in several pasts. Though issues of race play virtually no role in the stories, one character, an African-American physicist, recalls dropping out of a writing course because the professor thought he should be mining his heritage instead of inventing science fiction.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue