FAMILY STRIFE, THE DELICIOUSLY SUBLIME & CLOUDS IN THE DESERT – FICTION

Iddo Gefen’s Mrs. Lilienblum’s Cloud Factory: A Novel, translated by Daniella Zamir, begins with the title character drinking a martini in a crater in the Israeli desert. Her adult son, Eli, navigates handling his wacky mother, a missing hiker, and a possible romance with Tamara, a visitor to their family hostel. Then the Lilienblums build a company around its matriarch’s invention, making comedy out of startup culture and family secrets. In Ed Park’s An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories, characters across a collection of 16 tales bemoan their fleeting youth, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime. It’s a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. These are stories that tell the absurd truth about our lives. Gary Shteyngart’s Vera, or Faith: A Novel follows the Bradford-Shmulkin family as it is falling apart. Young Vera – half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original – just wants to make a friend at school; for Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom. Vera is a story of family and country told through the clear and tender eyes of a child.

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Buy Mrs. Lilienblum’s Cloud Factory: A Novel – Gefen

Buy An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories – Park

Buy Vera, or Faith: A Novel – Shteyngart