Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then, a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon, other

The Nickel Boys

“The Nickel Boys” is at once the thematic successor to Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning “The Underground Railroad” and so stylistically different, it’s hard to imagine the two novels came from the same author. Based on the real-world discovery of a mass grave at a boys’ reformatory academy in Florida, “The Nickel Boys” explores the brutality of a “school” where abuse is rampant. Given the gruesome topic, Whitehead’s restraint is astonishing; his economy of words and imagery make the snippets of overt racism all the more potent.