Sybil's List: June 2023

In 1610, a servant girl flees into the wilderness surrounding the Jamestown, Va., colonial settlement, where all are starving. The narrative hurtles along as she sustains herself among a multitude of dangers.

Haunting and unforgettable, this debut novel chronicles the coming of age of two adolescent boys in an elite British boarding school who enlist in World War I while striving to conceal their erotic attraction.

A bestseller in France, this autobiographical novel follows events after a mysterious postcard bearing the names of family members who died in the Holocaust arrives in Paris in 2003. It initiates an epic quest.

A passionate romance between an idealistic 19-year-old woman and a married author in his fifties occurs against the decline of the East German communist state and the collapse of the Wall.

Sprawling with colorful characters and settings, this three-generational family saga set in Kerala, India, revolves around the search for an end to a mysterious curse.
 

Long, vividly expressed and highly imaginative, this fable-like novel purports to be a long-lost narrative poem from 14th century India in which a girl becomes a goddess with magical powers.
 

The lives of four sisters in a close-knit Italian family in a blue -collar area of Chicago implode when the eldest sister marries a man in graduate school and begins to change the direction of his career.
 

Inspired by the author’s mother who served in the Clubmobiles --a little=known Red Cross unit that brought donuts and coffee to soldiers on the front lines during WW II-- this is a tale of female friendship, courage, and heroism.

When a true-crime podcaster returns to her boarding school in New Hampshire, she determines to find the killer of her roommate, since she’s convinced that the wrong man was imprisoned.
 

During the years called the Troubles in northern Ireland, a love affair between a 24-year-old Catholic schoolteacher and a married Protestant barrister cannot transcend the religious and social violence ignited by hate and bigotry.

In this provocative literary thriller set in New Zealand, an idealistic young woman who heads a guerrilla gardening collective accepts funding from a hugely wealthy American who has nefarious plans to rule the world.
 

This heartbreaking thriller takes place during Boston’s school desegregation crisis in 1974. Ingrained racial prejudice results in the death of a white high school senior and the seemingly unrelated murder of a young Black man.

This brilliant recasting of the Dickens novel into contemporary life in Appalachia follows a young man born to a teenaged alcoholic mother. He becomes the victim of cruel state guardianship, shattered hopes, and drug addiction---yet he survives.

Based on a true event, this lyrical novel imagines the lives of the interdependent residents of a poor mixed-race community who are evicted from an island off the Maine coast for being “ethnically deplorable.”
 

Sam is a young girl who moves through adolescence as she begins to understand the feckless behavior of the father she loves, her mother’s struggle with poverty and violent men, and the way she herself can remake her own future.

These 12 short stories take place on a Penobscot Indian Reservation in Maine and follow a Native boy named David through events that traumatize his loving but dysfunctional family.

Marooned on a desolate island off Patagonia in 1740 after the shipwreck of a British warship, the survivors endured starvation, betrayal, and mutiny, and eventually were pitted against each other in an Admiralty court martial.

In this harrowing tale of injustice, an innocent Black teenager from New Haven’s inner city was convicted of murder. Even his eventual release illuminates basic problems in society.

 

In the 1920s, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, its spread among the Midwest, its endorsement by ministers, and its growing political power posed a threat to our democracy that has eerie implications for our current situation.

An indictment of racially biased adoption and foster care systems shows how six Black children were taken from their families in Texas and adopted by a white married couple who abused, starved, and murdered them during a suicide pact.

Minority rule by Southern states coerced the compromise whereby our Constitution allowed slavery. Feldman shows how and why Lincoln changed his mind about emancipation and why the problem still exists today.
 

The consummate journalist’s distinctive voice and brilliant insights are preserved in this slim memoir, along with photos of significant moments in her life.

 

The wife of a famous writer/ a poet / mother of four/ political and human rights activist/ enthusiastic traveler/ with homes in Connecticut and Martha’s Vineyard/ at age 95, Rose Styron recalls her amazing life.
 

During the pandemic in Westport, a group of writers chronicled their daily lives in diary entries that record their fear, boredom, depression and illnesses, plus the coping methods and camaraderie that give this collection universal resonance.