Literary.

In 1940s Memphis, Henry McAllan saves college-bred Laura from spinster-hood. But when she follows her husband to a mud-bound farm in the Mississippi Delta to fulfill his dream of working the land, she finds a house without modern amenities, a mean-spirited father-in-law, and domestic and racial abuses. As World War II ends, two returning vets bring a glimmer of hope to her world: black wartime hero Ronsel Jackson, the son of sharecroppers who must return to the South's retrogressive culture, and Henry's brother, the charming, haunted Jamie McAllan. Narrated in turns by Laura, Jamie, Henry, Ronsel, and others, Mudbound offers a shocking, tragic depiction of the Jim Crow South.

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Algonquin Books. 336 pages. $22.95. ISBN: 156512569X

Rocky Mountain News *****

"Jordan unhesitatingly lays out the injustices of the 1940s south. Rather than drifting toward the pat solutions that too many novels of this era suggest, she leaves us both satisfied and mired in the frustrations of cultural prejudices that extend well beyond the post-bellum american south." JENNIE CAMP

Minneapolis Star Tribune ****

"It's so carefully considered and so full of weight, like the heavy, wet mud of the delta. and it's extraordinarily plain writing, devoid of any fancy words, any hyperbole, any prettiness--perfect for this tragedy set in the american south." TOM VOEGELI

San Antonio Exp-News ****

"With authentic, earthy prose--'His lips were dark red, like the gills of a bass'--Jordan picks at the scabs of racial inequality that will perhaps never fully heal and brings just enough heartbreak to this intimate, universal tale, just enough suspense, to leave us contemplating how the lives and motives of these vivid characters might have been different." STEVE BENNETT

Dallas Morning News ****

"This mixture of the predictable and the unpredictable will keep readers turning the pages. ... This ambitious first novel will leave you mulling over the characters, yet feeling uncomfortable judging some of them." ANNE MORRIS

Denver Post ***

"The question Jordan veers from, perhaps because it is so inexplicable, is what drives the most evil characters in her book. Pappy stands in for the worst of the Jim Crow attitudes, but he is the one central character who is never given a chance to speak for himself." ROBIN VIDIMOS

Washington Post **

"Fortunately, Mudbound is not as clunky as the Bellwether Prize would suggest, but it does suffer from a deadening earnestness." RON CHARLES

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Winner of Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize (2006), which recognizes an unpublished manuscript promoting social responsibility, Jordan's debut novel exposes the racism and sexism of the Jim Crow South. Most critics embraced this topic, even while recognizing its heavy-handedness; the Washington Post noted that "the book doesn't challenge our prejudices so much as give us the easy satisfaction of feeling superior to these evil Southerners." Reviewers disagreed somewhat on the complexity of character development, with a few complaining of unclear motives. They agreed, however, on the power of Jordan's plain, earthy writing (reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor's prose, to some) and the compelling plot. If it's too early to say that "after just one book ... here's a voice that will echo for years to come," as the San Antonio Express-News claims, Jordan is a new author worth watching.

****

My Revolutions

By Hari Kunzru

Memoirs of a former radical.

Michael Frame, a middle-aged, middle-class Englishman, lives a quiet, comfortable life with his wife and daughter. What his family doesn't know, however--what no one close to him knows--is that Michael Frame is not his real name and that he spent his 20s as a political terrorist protesting the Vietnam War. The bourgeois life he lives now epitomizes everything he once fought against. But when Miles Bridgeman, a mysterious man Michael knew when they were both young revolutionaries, reappears with blackmail on his mind, Michael is forced to confront his past and reexamine the choices that led him to betray his former friends and ideals.

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Dutton. 288 pages. $25.95. ISBN: 0525949321

Minneapolis Star Tribune ****

"[I]f Kunzru doesn't give My Revolutions the most original setup, he makes up for it with colorful yet believable characters, plotting that's suspenseful without being gimmicky, and a rising sense of tension that drives the story toward a conclusion that isn't necessarily foreseen." CHERIE PARKER

NY Times Book Review ****

"Kunzru, born in 1969, gives an amazingly convincing account of a period he never witnessed. And by treating the millenarian aspirations of his characters with respect, he rejects the popular view of such revolutionaries as delusional adolescents, playing at revolt. He reveals the yearning behind the dreadful agitprop, the abiding message inside the Molotov cocktail bottle." WILL BLYTHE

Cleveland Plain Dealer ****

"The story of the middle-class ex-radical from the '60s living a suburban life in the '90s is not a new one--Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, covered similar ground. But Kunzru keeps the story fresh by giving us a narrator who is so movingly human." STEVEN HAYWARD

Seattle Times ****

"Nitpicking aside, Kunzru's novel is fast-paced, strong on character and setting, and well-executed (although the last 20 or so pages seem like gathering up loose ends). It is clear Kunzru has a strong feeling that the world doesn't often change unless it's pushed toward a better goal. Kunzru also knows that those who push the hardest sometimes lose the sense of where they are trying to go." RICHARD WALLACE

Boston Globe **

"In our post-9/11 world, it would seem difficult to write about terrorism before that pivotal September day and shed little light on terrorism since then, but Hari Kunzru has found a way in his disappointing novel, My Revolutions." ROBERT BRAILE

CRITICAL SUMMARY

My Revolutions, the third novel by critically acclaimed British writer Hari Kunzru (named one of Granta's "Twenty Best Fiction Writers Under Forty"), melds deep political and philosophical reflections with a page-turner of a plot. The result is a novel that most critics praised for being both enthralling and thought provoking. While the Seattle Times complained that "for those of us who enjoy reading Kunzru for his laser wit and wicked sense of dark social comedy, My Revolutions is a bit of a letdown," most reviewers agreed that Kunzru manages to treat his characters, with all their failed idealism, their sins and their compromises, with both careful scrutiny and a welcome sense of compassion. In so doing, Kunzru asks an important, timely question: How does idealism lead to violence--and then back to indiffierence?

****

Song Yet Sung

By James McBride

A shameful past.

In 1850, a beautiful, young runaway slave, Liz Spocott, is hunted down, shot in the head, and imprisoned in the attic of Patty Cannon, a notorious slave trader. Clinging to life, Liz drifts in and out of consciousness while experiencing terrifying hallucinations of a distant future (the early 21st century). She shares these dreams with a fellow prisoner, who reciprocates by teaching Liz the Code, a cryptic language used to guide runaway slaves to freedom. After a daring escape from the attic, Liz, nicknamed the Dreamer for her clairvoyant visions, flees into the Maryland woods with a vengeful Cannon and famous slave tracker in hot pursuit.

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Riverhead. 368 pages. $25.95. ISBN: 1594489726

Oregonian ****

"Deceptively simple, the narrative is clean, spare and relentless. McBride's prose reminds me of the proverbial duck: smooth and tranquil above the surface to mask the furious paddling of novelistic invention and research underneath." DAVID LOFTUS

Rocky Mountain News ****

"Haunting and suspenseful, replete with atmospheric language and rich, strange detail, Song Yet Sung casts a powerful spell. ... McBride has created a vivid world, detailed down to its landscape, weather, social mores, distinctive dialect and community tensions." JENNY SHANK

Seattle Times ****

"McBride borrows liberally from actual historical events and figures to fabricate this engrossing tale, and then emphasizes the implications of past actions by interspersing them with Liz's recurring nightmares of the future. ... McBride's characters evoke an extraordinary time that spawned ghosts that haunt us still, with the message that if we fail to take responsibility for our actions, we will be permanently mired in despair." BARBARA LLOYD MCMICHAEL

Washington Post ****

"How do all these characters' stories combine? In a complex, ever-tightening, increasingly suspenseful web that rises toward a dramatic climax. ... Some may groan that Liz's prescience is forced, especially as she sees further and further into the future, right up to bejeweled rappers spitting violence and misogyny." DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM

Charlotte Observer ***

"We are introduced here to a dizzying array of characters--too many, I believe, for McBride to develop them fully. Though the story becomes much more compelling as the connections among these characters become clear, it is an unsteady narrative." EMILY SEELBINDER

Cleveland Plain Dealer ***