Merry Christmas from C4 (and our best to whatever other holidays you may–or may not–enjoy this year). Rather than put together a list of obvious Christmas/Hanukkah book choices, I figured I’d share some recommendations for novels that focus on family coming together, and to a lesser degree that explore a suburban culture that, at least in America, seems to have blended in definition with that feeling we think of as ”holiday spirit.” (All links go to C4 reviews.)
Liars and Saints was the first book that came to mind when I becan compiling this list. Maile Meloy‘s debut novel nicely tangles then untangles generations of a family as messed up as our own always seem to be.
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This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper, is actually quite similar to Liars and Saints. It’s a little funnier, and a little less complex.
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Wonderboys would represent the apex of most authors’ careers. But Michael Chabon is a special case, and wonderful (sorry) as this book is, it’s probably not as good as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or (I’m told) The Yiddish Policemens’ Union. This book gets pretty madcap, and a lot of the family stuff is secondary, but this excellent book nails the suburban thing.
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White Noise is the bleakest novel in this list. Don DeLillo’s books don’t tend to be cheery, so this shouldn’t come as much surprise. Being pretty postmodern, it’s not the most casual of reads, but it’s an excellent book worth reading. Also nails the suburban thing.
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Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I’m probably the only person to recommend Lolita as a holiday read but I make a point to recommended this book at any given opportunity. It does, however, fit into this category quite nicely. This is in part becuase Nabokov does an exceptional job of capturing 50′s suburban kitsch better than any photograph ever can.
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Middlesex is a broad book to say the least. It covers generations of a family and at the same time chronicles the modern era in America. Eugenides is an excellent writer, and this book is a tour de force of his mastery of both plotting and narration. As much as the book fits this list, my real pick by Jeffery Eugenides is…
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The Virgin Suicides, which is probably one of the finest examples of a suburban novel I’ve ever come across. It is narrated by a collective “we” of a group of boys who develop an obsession with 5 sisters who were suicides. The first person plural cleverly and humorously compares suburbia to the choruses of classic poetry, which is perfeect to say the least.
Other books of interest:
The Ice Storm, by Rick Moody
The Believers, by Zoë Heller
Not novels, but any of the Calvin & Hobbes collections by Bill Waterson are nice picks. My personal favorites are Weirdos From Another Planet and Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”