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Historical Fiction December 2018
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| Little by Edward CareyIn 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel--a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love. |
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The Dakota Winters
by Tom Barbash
It’s the fall of 1979 in New York City when twenty-three-year-old Anton Winter, back from the Peace Corps and on the mend from a nasty bout of malaria, returns to his childhood home in the Dakota. Anton’s father, the famous late-night host Buddy Winter, is there to greet him, himself recovering from a breakdown. Before long, Anton is swept up in an effort to reignite Buddy’s stalled career, a mission that takes him from the gritty streets of New York, to the slopes of the Lake Placid Olympics, to the Hollywood Hills, to the blue waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and brings him into close quarters with the likes of Johnny Carson, Ted and Joan Kennedy, and a seagoing John Lennon.
But the more Anton finds himself enmeshed in his father’s professional and spiritual reinvention, the more he questions his own path, and fissures in the Winter family begin to threaten their close bond. By turns hilarious and poignant, The Dakota Winters is a family saga, a page-turning social novel, and a tale of a critical moment in the history of New York City and the country at large.
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All the Lives We Never Lived
by Anuradha Roy
From a Man Booker Prize-nominated author, a poignant and sweeping novel set in India during World War II and the present-day about a son’s quest to uncover the truth about his mother.
In my childhood, I was known as the boy whose mother had run off with an Englishman. The man was in fact German, but in small‑town India in those days, all white foreigners were largely thought of as British.
So begins the story of Myshkin and his mother, Gayatri, a rebellious, alluring artist who abandons parenthood and marriage to follow her primal desire for freedom.
Though freedom may be stirring in the air of India, across the world the Nazis have risen to power in Germany. At this point of crisis, a German artist from Gayatri’s past seeks her out. His arrival ignites passions she has long been forced to suppress.
What follows is her life as pieced together by her son, a journey that takes him through India and Dutch‑held Bali. Excavating the roots of the world in which he was abandoned, he comes to understand his long‑lost mother, and the connections between strife at home and a war‑torn universe overtaken by patriotism.
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The Tattooist of Auschwitz
by Heather Morris
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
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| House of Thieves by Charles BelfoureArchitect John Cross attempts to save his family from financial and social ruin by joining the crime syndicate known as "Kent's Gents" and using his insider knowledge of Manhattan's buildings to plan and execute daring robberies.
This fast-paced, suspenseful story by the author of The Paris Architect depicts both the high society and the criminal underworld of 1886 New York City. |
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| The Devil's Half Mile by Paddy HirschThe setting: New York City in 1799.
Starring: attorney Justice "Justy" Flanagan, whose investigation into his father's death draws him into a web of conspiracy and threatens to ignite a financial panic.
For fans of: the atmosphere and rich historical detail of Lyndsay Faye's Gods of Gotham; the financial and political intrigue of David Liss' The Whiskey Rebels. |
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| The Long Drop by Denise MinaGlasgow, 1958: two men embark on an all-night pub crawl: William Watt, who stands accused of murdering his entire family, and criminal Peter Manuel, who hints that he has evidence that will lead to the real killer.
Read it for a strong sense of place, a subtle subversion of crime fiction tropes, and a penetrating look at class and gender roles.
Best known for her gritty mysteries set in modern-day Glasgow, Denise Mina takes the plunge into historical crime fiction with this novel based on real events. |
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| Sutton by J.R. MoehringerReleased in 1969 after a 17-year stretch behind bars, charismatic bank robber Willie Sutton tours New York City with a reporter and a photographer in tow, reminiscing about the good old days.
Did you know? The real Willie Sutton penned two memoirs, I, Willie Sutton, and Where the Money Was, in which he recounts the highlights of his criminal career. |
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| See What I Have Done by Sarah SchmidtLizzie Borden took an axe... and, well, we all know what happened next. Or do we?
This unsettling debut tells the story from the (conflicting) perspectives of Lizzie, her elder sister, a maid in the Borden household, and a stranger whose surprising connection to the crime is gradually revealed.
For fans of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. |
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| The Paying Guests by Sarah WatersTo maintain their upper-middle-class lifestyle in 1920s London, 27-year-old "spinster" Frances Wray and her widowed mother must take in lodgers.
Their first "paying guests" arrive, working-class married couple Leonard and Lillian Barber. Frances soon begins an affair with lovely Lillian, setting off a tragic chain of events.
Sarah Waters specializes in suspenseful and sensual historical novels steeped in atmosphere and rich in period detail. |
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Contact the Library for more great titles! |
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