In her new novel, “The Laughter,” Sonora Jha satirizes academia by following an older, white male professor who is lusting after his younger, Pakistani colleague, all while a student protest brews.
Two new books — “Brutes,” by Dizz Tate, and “On the Savage Side,” by Tiffany McDaniel — challenge and reshape the way stories about abused and murdered women are told.
“The Applicant,” a debut novel by Nazli Koca, features a worldly-wise 20-something Turkish writer who works as a cleaner at a Berlin hostel while struggling to figure out what kind of life she wants to lead.
“The American Way,” by Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler, tells the story of Siegler’s immigrant grandfather — who happened on the movie star while she was filming “The Seven Year Itch” — while delving into other colorful mid-20th-century American characters.
In Marisa Crane’s debut novel, “I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself,” a queer, grieving mother must learn how to raise a newborn baby who is marked from birth as a bad actor.
“Have Mercy on Us” moves from Greece to Kenya to California; “Call and Response” is set in Botswana; “Welcome Me to the Kingdom” explores Bangkok’s dark corners.
“Unscripted,” an account by the Times journalists James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams of the media titan Sumner Redstone’s final years, is a chronicle of corporate greed, manipulation, misogyny and sexual impropriety on a spectacular scale.
Contemporary fiction writers have only just begun to address the dating app revolution, but when they do the results are often new, bold stories about human connection and desire.