The rough names, stamped on everyone, are fixed in Lee County: Maggot, Angus (for Agnes), Coach, Woody, and, of course, our title character. The nicknames are given by others, done to them, like a light curse. Like “hillbilly” and other dishonorifics, heavy with history, the labels never completely disappear. People truly grow when they move toward life‘s greater efforts like love and art and decide: I am not who you say I am.

Despite the title, the writing lacks the exaggeration and fun mock-seriousness of his TV interviews and standup. The writeups accompanying his impressive celeb caricatures at times here feel part Wikipedia entry and part…namedrop? Or at least like a list of famous people he‘s met and/or admired. Sometimes we get a great fleshed out story (like the one recounting his first Tonight Show appearance), but often times we‘re left with a quick sketch.

John Lennon believes in the power of his subconscious mind, which seems to receive both present, passing flashes of inspiration, and radiating echoes of the past. That antenna-like connection leads to brilliant music; at other times, it leads to noise. In the novel, Lennon seeks the peace of a private island, where he has the space to Scream out trauma and reset. Unfortunately, for artists like Lennon, there is never quiet. He is always tuned in.

In a novel featuring women guarding their seemingly supernatural, influential powers, writing one‘s story appears as the most impactful -craft. As women here sacrifice identity to not disrupt the natural bliss of Bellinas and the boyish men trying to govern it, one‘s written account, planted like a bomb, affirms if not the exact truth, an authorship—someone not sharing a byline with anyone else, someone taking complete control of their own story.

In this creepy book with great, creepy sentences, Maurice and Charlie wait in the port/purgatory of Algeciras. They are restless, cruel, old men who have somehow survived a life of dealing drugs and pain. Despite their meanness, their friendship is special; their damaged souls fit together. The ending signals that hope exists, even for life‘s most lost, and peace arrives when people and things arrive safely at their rightful destination.

Patch‘s quest to find a fellow captive he‘d known only in darkness takes him to coal mines, bank robbery, jail, elaborate home construction, and lots of art. He goes from misfit pirate wannabe (his most interesting phase, in my opinion) to saint of all trades. His quest is seen as noble by characters, but it‘s easy to see selfishness as his voyage extends. When you dedicate your life to finding someone, you forget the ones who are already there.

There‘s not much going on in Gilead, Iowa, which leaves lots of time for reflection. Reverend Ames does just that, writing letters to his young son. The journal entries reveal his family history and current tensions with his visiting godchild who shares his name. Conflicts between father and son span generations here, but humans have a holy power that appears in the act of forgiveness—a miracle that turns life‘s doubters into believers.

On any given day in 1919, Babe Ruth, whose observing background presence is the best part of the story, can hit a ball to the sky. He can also strike out. The lives of characters here can change in the flash of a gun, the birth of a child, the spreading of sickness, a sudden trade. Hope, however, begins with arrival in a new home, a city that itself is arriving in a new era, where despite the world‘s present ugliness, anything seems possible.

A slave like James—and the owners who control him—know that the most powerful weapon is the pencil, not the pistol. A command of language does just that: commands. To tell a story that remains, that places cruelty on the record for all to see, that announces its author by name as someone in complete control of their own narrative? That‘s its own mighty shot.

Despite the title, an interpreter for The Hague is close with no one. The nameless language-expert‘s mind is frequently manipulated by men who know how to talk. Her life gets worse when she takes people at their word and ignores the warning signs present in the rooms they strut through—feelings that are impossible to record but somehow need to be taken into account when it‘s time for judgment.

The boy “Griz” has a helpful map and Swiss Army knife to guide himself through a barren Earth, but the novel also sees apocalyptic value in a good story. “Brand” deploys his spinning yarns to swindle. Griz writes his personal account as an act of faith—that it will be read by someone who needs it, sure, but also that it will keep him alive. If you‘re writing, after all, that means the journey hasn‘t concluded and a good ending is still possible.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is an ode to the librarians—those who guard the books and share their immense, beautiful world of fact and fantasy to young people. I found hope in this novel, that the most lonely and forgotten people—an orphan in 15th century Constantinople, a plow driver broken by war, a child left alone on a spaceship—will make contributions experienced centuries later, when they dedicate their lives to protecting the stories they love most.

Kya is laughed at by classmates, abandoned by family, ignored or attacked by lovers. No wonder she hides in the marsh. The town feels thinly sketched. The quarterback is arrogant, the defense lawyer swaggers, the two cops go to diners. Cliches aside: almost every adult, particularly those in authority, is insensitive to her pain. Any violence she brings to them is strangely thought of as a win, where the real victory is moving on without them.

For many in Manhattan Beach, there‘s a comfort in fog—a kind of peace that takes Anna and her father away from a heavy life. Both characters equally have a gift of diving into a murky cloud and finding what‘s lost. The best characters find treasures by dropping into the unknown and having faith that they have the capacity to endure.

When Stella takes on a new identity in California, or her daughter Kennedy leaves for New York, or Stella‘s sister Desiree runs away from her hometown, they each pursue a kind of freedom, a new potential. For the less sensitive, running is easy and leads to a comfortable life. The journey is tougher for those who can‘t help but turn around toward those they love, who choose not to forget.

Truth in True Crime is impossible, unless you can learn the entire complicated life of each assailant, accomplice, and victim. The author Darnielle gets us to feel for all three. Devil House says the ethical way to tell the true story of a tragic murder is to put yourself in the place of every single person involved — to understand them, bring them to life to a loving audience, like the best fiction writers giving us the best fictional characters.

In Lockwood‘s book, going on the Internet is called “opening the portal.” The narrator seems to have built a professional life there as a humor writer, until a new arrival calls her back through the door. A baby born with Proteus Syndrome, too rare for both the physical and digital world, transcends both places like the cover‘s circular rainbow, calling everyone nearby to attention and appearing as a kind of short-lived miracle.

The parents have ruined the AirBNB, and the younger generation is ashamed of the irresponsible partiers who refuse to address the mess. The outside world crumbles too. Our best chance to repair a broken place: the arrival of new life. As we grow, we bear responsibility for our home. We are more likely to put out fires when we see the innocent who truly had nothing to do with them. We are moved to act because their presence feels like a miracle.

Amor has only felt the full love of her family when she was struck by lightning — her father held her in his arms, her mother, brother, and sister ran to her aid. Since that childhood moment, Amor has been left aside, called only for funerals. And the youngest sibling always dutifully returns. Because if you don‘t have family, what do you have? As Amor sits on the roof of an old home, watching from a distance, you can guess her answer: Freedom.

In The New York Trilogy, three private investigations fail, or succeed in upending the lives of the investigators. In fact, the studied are frequently in control of the studier, much like an author guides a reader. Watching a mysterious character only leads to self-destruction—a strange feeling for someone who didn‘t quite love a book but didn‘t quit, and knew the only way out was to reach the final page.

In “Archive,” remembering those lost to history (the Apaches) or the present (refugees) is a noble effort. When you dedicate your life to archiving, however, you inevitably leave others behind and unrecorded. Two documentarians tear up their old lives and bring their kids (and us) on a long, pretty dull car ride, made worse when you see the selfishness of the effort, and how commemoration of some makes others disappear.

Kolya can talk his way out of anything: a jail cell, the den of a cannibal killer, a prison camp — not because he‘s a con artist but because he tells a good story and knows how to connect with people. He‘s a writer. Our best authors, like Kolya, like Lev the poet, like Benioff, weave a tale that — no matter how farfetched — brings light and hope to our darkest, most brutal times, where there‘s no food, no peace, and no happy ending in sight.

“Nonso, you have destroyed yourself because of me,” Ndali says to her lover just before he sells his chicken farm and faces a new life in Cyprus — one filled with unexpected suffering, dealt cruelly by others. When Chinonso returns to Nigeria, there‘s nothing left of him. While one can understand Nonso for fighting fire with fire, Orchestra suggests grace is found in those who quietly accept their fate, who find others in need, and wail with them.

Wallace, a biochem student from Alabama, hates it at his midwest university, and who can blame him? He‘s in a story where nothing happens and every conversation — between co-workers, lovers, or “friends” — is an over-sensitive fight about feeling ignored. There‘s no drama here — nobody wants anything interesting — unless you count constant arguing. Wallace takes 300 pages deciding if he wants to leave. For me, the decision is way too easy.

Like her hawk, Agnes sets her husband free to fly away, to go to London to stage the great plays in his mind. In life, we leave the ones we love — sometimes to chase a vision, other times to accept the cruel fate of death. The joy in life is found in the return — when we reach our hand out in faith and our loved ones land home. If a call goes unanswered, use every kind of possible art to go out and find them.

In debate, Adam must always prep for the “spread,” a confusing barrage of so much information that defense against each point is impossible. “Topeka”‘s slow set of character reflections finds narrative-changing power in repurposing language, in how debate becomes rap-battle with just a few tweaks. But there‘s peace when words and their meanings dissolve, no wires are crossed, and everyone shouts the same simple thing into the unintelligible noise.

In Shuggie Bain, alcoholism flips the parent/child relationship. Young Shuggie takes care of his mother Agnes, and Agnes is the one who cries and lashes out — poisoned by the pull of booze and the men who take advantage of women with such addictions. The novel is heartbreaking because a smart boy with a rescuer‘s heart is left to find his own way in an unwelcome world. You can‘t save everyone, he learns, or you‘ll never live your own life.

While the complexity of Chiang‘s stories often left me feeling far behind, the best science fiction should do just that. I don‘t need to understand sci-fi as much as be there to explore its big questions. Questions like: In a fixed future, do our choices matter? Yes, says Exhalation. A mind, to reach its potential, needs cultivation by other minds. The choices we make for each other matter most. We must love, teach, and, of course, make Art.

There‘s an unexpected layer to this Battle Royale — a sad marriage on the battlefield. Katniss dresses Peeta‘s wounds, does all the hunting, feigns love, and waits around for an end to her misery. The Hunger Games audience surprisingly responds not to kills but to demonstrations of love, even when they‘re performed. When the world is hard enough as it is, our real hope is not to survive, but to find a perfect partner to run through the fire with.

Nobody is perfect in Deacon King Kong — not Hot Sausage drinking on the job, or Tommy Elefante moving booze from the docks, or Sister Gee hiding the truth now and then, and certainly not Sportcoat, who begins the novel firing his gun. Officer Potts, another imperfect soul, says: “A lot of saints don‘t start out well, but they end that way.” The good people “clean the dirt,” — around them, and in themselves, and trust when their work is done.

Quichotte is a blur, in the most exciting way. A spy author‘s new story about a dreamer named Quichotte, who‘s on a quest for the heart of a popular TV star, begins to feel like his own life. Our world is a blur: A game-show host is President; our biggest phonies appear on “reality” TV. Such an indecipherable mess can be depressing or it can be hopeful — our wildest, most impossible ideas have the chance to be brought to life and considered Real.

Events looked so grim for Washington‘s troops in the fall of 1776, I found myself thinking, “How do we end up winning this thing?” McCullough‘s book explores a great victory made possible by a series of small miracles. While there‘s luck involved in weather and timing, however, we see there is a super-strength earned and achieved when you have good leaders that lead by example and keep you walking one step at a time, in the dark, across the ice.

Can Mickey, a rock-and-roll dreamer, change, or is his identity as fixed as his unlucky draft number? For a book about a disappearance, “Chances Are” has a lot of slow drives, bike rides, and recliner naps. For a reunion between supposed besties, the three former college bros rarely spend a moment all together. My issue with the book is the point Russo makes: The men who‘ve been friends for 45 years don‘t seem to know each other at all.

When removed from their kind, humans can change in the most remarkable ways, says The Overstory. At first glance, seven characters experience a range of misfortunes, from paralysis to prison time. Life‘s lightning strikes take them out of their usual world. The limitations, however, bring stillness, and stillness is a seed that grows. Life‘s pain is temporary—a pore on a leaf, on a branch, high in the crown of too many trees to count.

New York feels like home to me. I moved here 10 years ago, however, and I‘m sure someone born in Brooklyn might scoff at the idea that I consider myself a “New Yorker.” Lee brings us through generations to show us that home is not a place; it‘s people — the ones that love us most.

Sometimes where we feel safest is where we least belong. We move to big cities, join protests, and find new friends in the strangest of places. While Tequila Leila‘s crew seemed too unlikely to me, I appreciate the book‘s ideas about life‘s turmoil and death‘s peace. The joys here on Earth are found in the rumbling present. Crying out, after all, is the best way to let everyone know you‘re alive.

In Everything Under, words have the power to isolate. When you share a language that outsiders could never understand, you are kept close. Words, however, also have a way of setting an idea into being. When Sarah calls something a "Bonak,” she is, in fact, calling something — a fear, a monster, death. Throughout the novel — slow, winding, like a river — the characters learn how impossible it is to catch anything once it‘s in motion.

Every year, 22 men meet at a hotel to re-enact a 1985 career-ending injury of Joe Theismann. The weekend is full of possibility and inevitability. By Saturday, a chosen “Theismann” will be cut down. The 22 try to find the exact moment between thriving and dying, but the weekend is about celebration—cramming into Room 432, understanding that our roads have fateful tragic ends and life‘s exciting unpredictability lies in how we connect with others.

“A great and lasting story is about everyone,” says Sam Hamilton, my favorite character in East of Eden. In Steinbeck‘s novel, we watch how guilt burdens three generations of characters. Guilt, however, is part of everyone‘s story—the story of Cain is a story of today. Although “Eden” is about us all, Steinbeck reminds us that we have the power as individuals to make our own path, and to build good or bad lives with the land we are given.

What a comforting idea when life isn‘t going as planned: You have lived a different life, and you‘ll live another one too. Even more comforting: No matter what happens in this life or the next, in version 4.1 where you‘re rich or 26.1 where you‘re poor, there is always a part of us, our most special aspect, our soul, that finds a way to shine in every iteration. No matter the circumstances, writers find a way to write.

In The Long Take, U.S. cities have no past. Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco are constantly tearing down their histories. The root of a city‘s evolution here is destruction—whether by bulldozer, by law, by violence, by poverty, or by earthquake. Our lives, too, can age like the faded signs of a storefront. Our redemption lies in destroying our foundations and rebuilding again.

We seek order in life's pandemonium. Governments make laws, partners declare love, and artists write stories, imposing form on life‘s most amorphous parts. Asymmetry‘s chapters are, well, asymmetric, as if from separate novels. And that‘s the point: Characters coexist, but who says their paths must cross? Life, after all, cannot be neatly taken down on a page. But life, truly portrayed, also has a formlessness that‘s not the most exciting read.

In There There, nobody likes mirrors. Tony hates what fetal alcohol syndrome has done to his face. Orvil sees himself in a headdress and feels inauthentic. Searching for identity, to find some There There, 12 characters go to the Great Oakland Powwow. Despite individual burdens, characters feel an urge to live, to tell their story. What results is an interconnected mosaic of experiences — a more honest reflection of what it means to be Indian.

In Sing, Unburied, Sing, each character seeks a return home. Home, however, is not so much a place as it is a kind of peace, a song combining generations old and new. We can only go home when we have our biggest questions answered—answers that allow us to forgive. And if we cannot forgive, we remain as ghosts, crying out to the living who know pain well enough to recognize and respond to its call.

Caregiving has a hidden, destructive power. The best mothers and nannies surrender themselves entirely, taking the biggest hits -- to their lives and dreams -- to protect their young. Louise has spent her years slowly offering pieces of herself. When the nanny is finally reduced to nothing, she unleashes her buried fury to do the unthinkable. At the book's conclusion, though, I was left asking the same question I had at the beginning: Why?

There is a way that the world works, where the owners get to make the rules and those below must follow. To escape society‘s ideas of ownership—of land, of your own body—you can live in the woods like John, Cathy, and Danny. You can even fight back with great strength. But you‘ll inevitably be found, outnumbered, and subjected to the demands of the powerful. To be truly free, the book suggests, you have to burn it all down.

One of the surprisingly haunting scenes of “Believers” is when Yale emerges from a party to find that all of his friends have disappeared. In the novel, AIDS is a kind of war—killing loved ones, brothers, in an instant. The book does its best to reassure us that death is not the end, that we all live life together, again and again. And just in case that‘s not true, there‘s always art — the next best way to exist beyond this one life.

Life takes Washington Black from the heights of hot air balloons to the depths of the ocean, from Barbados to the Antarctic. There is a type of freedom in roaming the world, just as there is freedom in painting a blank canvas or choosing to explore the stars. We can try to escape in life, to arrive to new places, but we are bound to Earth and its realities. The ultimate freedom for the novel‘s characters lies in the departure, the return home.

In Milkman, the sky is blue and there‘s no sense in seeing the many colors of a sunset. To survive, you hide your finer details.

In a world of black and white, the only color we get is from our main character, who reveals to us and rarely to others. The scattered, name-free stream of consciousness is often exhausting, but we at least have her thoughts. When you don‘t show who you are, people are left to guess — and they frequently guess wrong.

The moment we‘re born, anything is possible. Then, the rules begin. Our lives are restricted by the parents we‘re given, the city we live in, the school we go to, the person we partner with, the job we have. In “Mars Room,” the dream is freedom. If you break away and do make it to the woods, you could end up anywhere between Henry David Thoreau and Ted Kaczynski. The joy of life is being given the chance to carve your own path.