Pick of the Lit 

FICTION

In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon). Our pick for Book of the Year is a 48-page graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, the author/artist of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus. Absent from book publishing lately, he returned with a vengeance, producing this large, complex, delightful, harrowing and at times hilarious work that tells a riveting story while expanding the graphic novel genre itself. Spiegelman presents a tale of both lucidity and confusion -- and nearly comical fear -- about living in lower Manhattan on 9/11, while using images from America's vast cultural memory, and the history of comics, to evince specific moods and states of mind. This genuine masterpiece is a combination of journal, therapeutic unloading, political screaming, and homage to the comic strip genre itself.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Random House Trade Paperback). British author Mitchell took up the modernist gauntlet in this book of six interrelated novellas, woven artfully, giving each one a clever linear connection to one happening previously in time. Mitchell has a different "voice" for each of his time periods, meanwhile the stories go forward in time for the first half of the book, then backward for the second half. In the end, Cloud Atlas speaks truth to power by vividly demonstrating, over a great expanse of time, how truth survives power.

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf). The Haitian-born Danticat uses a series of narratives to tell the stories of various people whose lives were deeply affected by a young artist's father. He, a Haitian immigrant whom she had always thought was a prison escapee, reveals to her that his role had actually been that of a prison guard with a nasty skill for torturing people. Set largely in America among the immigrant community, The Dew Breaker's prose sparkles and grabs for attention.

Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale (Knopf). Longtime cult favorite Lansdale finally entered the world of prestigious publishers with this Depression era novel set in a small East Texas sawmill community. It begins with a marital-rape-in-progress during which red-haired knockout Sunset Jones shoots her husband in the head, killing him, just as a tornado rips their house out from around them. As usual, Lansdale blurs the edges of several genres including detective noir, historical fiction and horror, spawning a highly unsettling tale with a surprisingly big heart.

Links By Nuruddin Farah (Riverhead Books). Farah, a Somalian exile at the front rank of African writers, gives us a novel in which a Somalian expat returns to Mogadishu in the 90s and finds a post-apocalyptic world. Two old friends -- one a physician and the other a war profiteer -- as well as a visionary child, play vital roles. This is a rhapsodic search for hope and closure amid anarchy; readers with the courage to be swept into its unpredictable currents will learn much.

Little Children by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin's Press). A funny, smart and spooky send-up of the void at the center of suburbia, Little Children features a former bisexual feminist mom who's had enough of motherhood, her husband who's addicted to pornsites, a handsome stay-at-home dad who's lost his way in life, and others. Throw an ill-advised affair and a pedophile fresh out of prison into the neighborhood, and the tensions of suburban childraising are completely outed and mulled over

The Lemon Table: Stories by Julian Barnes (Knopf). This collection of 11 stories by Britain's masterful Julian Barnes is chockfull of literary costume changes, while each story and character is united by the theme of aging -- and the idiosyncratic nature of the wisdom that we allegedly accumulate while falling apart.

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf). Florida's favorite satirist returns to his earlier high form in this typically wacked out, complicated story of a woman who works to avenge an attempt on her life by her dick-for-brains husband, whose incompetence and amorality, meanwhile, is helping to further destroy the Everglades. Hiaasen brings back former detective Mick Stranahan, last seen in Skin Tight, which many critics consider CH's best novel.

Early Leaving by Judy Goldman (William Morrow). Charlotte author Goldman explores how people deal with loss and change in the tragic story of a couple whose teenage son murders someone. Gleaning insights from family calamity is a common theme in every two-hanky book on the market, but Goldman's depth of characterization and poetic style raises this novel far above the middling crowd.

Divining Women by Kaye Gibbons (Putnam). Gibbons continues her longtime theme of resourceful women struggling against repressive Southern mores and the men who enforce them. During World War I in rural NC, two women fight for their sanity and their lives by learning to resist one of the women's pathologically controlling husband. Gibbons has a blast undermining the gothic role of the "helpless female" and allowing her women to work between the cracks in the system and find their strength.

Human Amusements by Wayne Johnston (Anchor). A Toronto family is caught up in the unpredictable nature of 1950s television in this alternately funny and revealing novel. Johnston is particularly good at mixing pop culture history and commentary with a hard look at the realities behind our obsession with entertainment.

NON-FICTION

Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster). Following no particular chronological order, Dylan provides detailed reflections on his musical and intellectual development in Minnesota and New York, artistic crises associated with two albums, and verbal sketches of people who have mattered to him. His prose here has news-hound punch, tossed off in a clipped, conversational style. While most celebrity autobiographies are self-serving and/or sensationalistic, Dylan took the high road.

Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke (Free Press). Clarke shook the White House by lifting the veil on much Bush administration bumbling, while exuding an authority that made his accusations hard to counterspin. He confirms what other insiders said about the Bush clique: they swaggered into office, full of themselves and locked in a Cold War mindset; not to mention that they were fatally obsessed with Iraq. And now look where we are.

Chattooga: Descending into the Myth of Deliverance River by John Lane. (Univ. of Georgia Press). Spartanburg, SC, writer Lane kayaks down the Chattooga River, exploring the impact of the book and film Deliverance on the river and its residents, many of whom appeared in the movie. He meets the banjo boy, now a middle-aged dishwasher, and details the struggles among residents, developers and environmentalists over the river's future, while offering lyrical, insightful descriptions that make the river itself the central character.

Banana Republic: A Year In the Heart of Myrtle Beach by Will Moredock (Frontline Press). Former CL writer Moredock fully explores, from economic, political, environmental and personal standpoints, what happened in Myrtle Beach that led it to grow from a relatively quiet family vacation destination to a bloated, tawdry Vegas-by-the-Sea in a matter of three or four decades. Bottom line: money begets more money, the local political establishment saw a fortune in their future and worked hand in hand with businesses to rape the landscape. Moredock tells this lurid but important story in a conversational style that makes for captivating reading.

The Last Best League by Jim Collins (Da Capo Press). Set in the bucolic summer haven of Cape Cod, this book examines life in the 10-team amateur league regarded as the best of its kind, the Cape Cod Baseball League, where players sign autographs and gladly participate in kids' clinics, and tickets are free. Players live with host families and work for local businesses and the towns rally around them. Classic Americana and, better yet, it's true.

Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones (Basic). An expansive and compelling look at the birth of comic books, Men of Tomorrow tells a classic American tale of exuberant, talented kids who met "the right people" at the right time and launched what, at the time, was considered a sordid business. Beginning as novelty items, comics grew in popularity until, in their heyday, they sold at a rate of nearly 15 million copies a month in the US alone.

Where We Stand: Voices of Southern Dissent edited by Anthony Dunbar (NewSouth). A stinging collection of essays by 12 leading Southern progressives on such issues as religion, the environment, militarism, the Patriot Act, and others. Collectively, they're dismayed at seeing the rest of the nation appropriating some of our region's worst aspects (e.g., racism, fundamentalism, intolerance) while eschewing the South's sense of community and generosity.

Cradle of Freedom by Frye Gaillard (Univ. of Alabama Press). Charlotte writer and longtime CL contributor Gaillard wrote an engaging history of the Civil Rights movement in his native state of Alabama, where many of the essential battles, from Montgomery to Birmingham to Selma, took place. Gaillard weaves together personal stories and introduces readers to the famous crusaders as well as many less familiar battlers whose stories are equally compelling.