Ten short stories with no recurring characters, whose settings include Noah’s Ark, an archeological expedition, and Heaven; a little essay; and a reproduction of a painting. It doesn’t sound like a novel, much less a history of the world, but it really is both.
This short novel is one monologue by a man speeding through the French countryside intending to crash his sportscar—with his daughter and his wife’s lover in the backseat—into a stone wall, and it’s among the least disquieting of Hawkes’ unyieldingly lyrical fiction.
My favorite nonfiction of this year so far: Essays full of tension between love, obligation, rebellion and violence that inform a bigger picture of everyday injustice. The author insists she’s not a proper journalist, but her observations articulated through the immediacy of her voice constantly tell you otherwise.