Dear Wags,

My book week by the numbers, in a salute to Harper’s Index:

Huge cups of fizzy prosecco from Vintage Views quaffed during the PEN/Faulkner Garden Party: 2 (oh my, they were delicious).

Authors I hung out with at the garden party: 15 (including Angie Kim, Matt Klam, Tania James, Rabih Alehmeddine, Susan Coll, Lisa Page, and Rose Solari).

Booksellers schmoozed: 1 (Hannah Oliver Depp of DC’s Loyalty Books).

Wags who attended my live interview with James Patterson and Mike Lupica for their new novel 12 Months to Live sponsored by the Carroll County libraries in Westminster, Maryland: 700

Number of times Patterson and I mentioned our hometown of Newburgh, New York: At least 12

Hours spent recording Season 2 of my Missing Pages podcast (the new season drops October 23): 4

Hours spent reading Pantheon’s reissued versions of The Children’s Bach and This House of Grief by Helen Garner before my interview with her (Garner’s novel, Monkey Grip, will also be reissued in February 2024): 10

Words of short fiction written (revisions to come!): 13,475

Review copies on my doorstep: 20

Hours spent on social media: 1 (try it, you’ll be so much happier).

Yours ever,

BKP

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

The word inimitable gets overused, but in the case of Wag Suprema Shirley Jackson, it’s just fact. Jackson wrote “The Lottery” in 1948, and it remains a strikingly original and unforgettably chilling American short story. Sadly, far fewer people have read her gothic horror classic The Haunting of Hill House, in which a woman’s psychological breakdown pulls in those around her. Now the Jackson estate has authorized Hand —author of mystery novels such as Curious Toys and Hokuloa Road—to write her own version of the tale. Four members of a theater company visit a spooky old house, where they must confront the darkness in their lives. The result isn’t imitation, but a satisfyingly scary homage.

A Man of Two Faces by Viet Than Nguyen

Nguyen is one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation, and his memoir is the moving story of his journey to manhood. Forced to flee Vietnam with his family as a child, he weathered violence growing up in San Jose, Calif. (at one point in his childhood, his parents were shot and wounded in their grocery store). The immigrant experience infuses his fiction, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Now, he takes an unflinching look back at a life spent navigating two cultures, first as a son and now as a father. It’s a poetic and inspiring American story.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

Caught between a dying father and a sick husband, a woman snags her clothes on cactus needles while hiking in the California desert. As she walks, Broder’s protagonist considers the novel she’s writing —which is about a woman caught between her dying father and a sick husband. This story is a puzzle and philosophical meditation, as if M. C. Escher and mindfulness guru Thich Nat Hanh collaborated on a work of art. Bear with it: Broder, the author of the hilariously dark and oddball novel Milk Fed, makes beautiful sense of these hallucinatory musings. It’s the latest novel to relate human grief to a dying planet — think Harrow by Joy Williams, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

Now a poet living in the United States, Sinclair was once taught to reject Western civilization as Babylon, the vestiges of empire that Rastafarians like her father believed kept Jamaica from glory. Sinclair’s father was a bad Rasta and a worse parent; he terrorized his family with rigid rules, explosions of fury, and physical abuse. Sinclair is a powerful writer who brings that talent to a wild true story of religious fundamentalism and the toll it takes on the vulnerable. “I doubted his gospel,” Sinclair writes of her father. Luckily, she developed a strong voice — and it is unforgettable.

The List by Yomi Adegoke

Adegoke’s new novel is a vibrant portrait of modern, multicultural London, where a successful journalist named Ola Olajide runs with a diverse crowd of hooked-in media types. Then one day her fiancé Michael’s name appears on The List, a crowdsourced collection of men accused of predatory behavior. Ola is torn between the Believe Women convictions of #MeToo and her love for Michael, who is torn apart by anxiety and depression by anonymous allegations. It’s a relevant and dynamic novel about the dark side of social media.

Questions and suggestions for BookWag? Please ping bookwag@culturewag.com, and we’ll get back to you in a jiffy.

CultureWag celebrates culture—high, medium, and deliciously low. It’s an essential guide to the mediaverse, cutting through a cluttered landscape and serving up smart, funny recommendations to the most hooked-in audience in the galaxy. If somebody forwarded you this issue, consider it a coveted invitation and RSVP “Subscribe.” You’ll be part of the smartest set in Hollywood, Gstaad, Biarritz, and Petersham Nurseries Restaurant in Richmond, London, where the sea bream with sea Beets, lovage & pickled gooseberries is scrummy.