Ghostwitten is the debut novel by David Mitchell and is a true gem. This is the third novel I’ve read by Mitchell, the previous two being the fantastic Cloud Atlas and Number9dream. It’s tough for me to pick between Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas as my favorite. Both weave a narrative through multiple short stories that interconnect in a Robert Altman kind of way. Cloud Atlas is a bit more complex and subtle while Ghostwritten is far more raw and angry.

Mitchell has many gifts as a writer, the first and foremost being a natural storyteller. Whether writing about love, theft, quantum physics or Mongolian culture, Mitchell can rivet your attention to the page. He propels you through the narrative, plunges and dunks you with an amazing descriptive capability and empathy for his characters. I never felt cheated by any one of the stories or characters in Ghostwritten, which is amazing given there are ten distinct stories within the novel. One would think a few of these would be less satisfying and that Mitchell might have had passion for just 7 of the 10.

That is not the case with Ghostwritten. Passion is not a problem for Mitchell. And I mourned the passing of each story because I wanted more. Each did reach a satisfying conclusion, but you wanted to inhabit that world, that reality, for a bit longer, to experience more of what Mitchell had created. The odd thing is that Ghostwritten is not a ‘happy’ piece of writing, but instead an expose on the hideous things people do to each other. I say this is odd because it doesn’t seem depressing. The actions are frightening in sections, heartbreaking in others but the tone lyrical and ethereal, much like a ghost watching those that remain alive.

I was also taken with many turns of phrase by Mitchell, as seen in the July Quotation Contest. Here are the others I would have liked to have used if they weren’t already easily available on the Internet.

“Nothing often poses in men as wisdom.”

“Memories are their own descendants masquerading as the ancestors of the present.”

“The human world is made of stories, not people.”

The last quote is apt given the composition of Ghostwritten. I’m partial to the more science-fiction themed stories of ‘Mongolia’ and ‘Night Train’. However, ‘Holy Mountain’ was a piercing and painful look at China’s evolution and ‘Petersburg’ a taut and powerful crime drama written from a unique point-of-view of a character unaware of the reality ahead of her. It’s akin to being in a movie theater and wanting to scream, ‘Don’t go out into the woods alone, that’s where the creature is!’

There’s nothing more for me to say other than to go and read Ghostwritten.

If you know anything about music you know Douglas Coupland’s Eleanor Rigby is about loneliness. The classic (and great) Beatles song brought isolation and depression to the top of the charts. (As a side note, Squeeze may be one of the best at bringing sad lyrics to the masses in such melodic, catchy pop tunes. Listen to Up The Junction if you have any doubts.)

Sure enough, Eleanor Rigby follows the life of Liz Dunn, a fat, friendless woman approaching middle-age, who resides in a sterile condo, watching Law and Order reruns. In 1991 Coupland’s Generation X exploded onto the cultural scene, for lack of a better cliche. This was the cool book of my formative years and it was liberating to see the oversize pages with textbook like definitions on the edges of the pages, surrounded by images or logos like ‘Economy of Scale is Ruining Choice’ and ‘Eroticize Intelligence’. I still think of corporate cube farms as ‘veal fattening pens’ because of Coupland.

And it wasn’t just the gimmicks that made Generation X so good. The writing was solid and it felt like he was dragging you into the digital future of adjectives. Coupland’s ability to fuse the new cultural reality with traditional narrative was inspiring. He spoke the language of films like Repo Man and Buckaroo Banzai and the music of Nirvana.

So is this a review of Eleanor Rigby or Generation X you ask? I think you have to look at where Coupland entered the literary landscape to see the maturity of Eleanor Rigby. Coupland had stepped in to speak for an entire generation and in many ways got trapped there in my opinion. It took a lot of time (both in written form and otherwise) for Coupland to finally step away from that legacy and start to stand on his own without the reverberation of Generation X roaring in his ears.

I’ve liked most of Coupland’s novels, but there has been an ebb and flow. Eleanor Rigby brings Coupland back to the forefront with a cast of quirky and likable characters set against the themes of death and loneliness. As you would expect there is plenty of darkness in the novel, from disease to dysfunctional families and a broken foster care system. But amid all that charcoal is a very bright light, a lilting cadence and dialog, as well as a simple yet fantastic and twisting plot.

Eleanor Rigby reminds you how good you have it, and how many people don’t and to never lose that perspective.

The World to Come is a kick in the stomach. I say this will great respect because it’s often difficult to get such a visceral reaction from the written word. There are portions of Dara Horn’s novel that simply make you want to close your eyes, want you to will what you’re revisiting out of this world. But you know that it exists. The old adage that there is more truth in fiction would certainly apply to how Horn has constructed some of her most heart-wrenching scenes.

The World to Come tracks the lineage and lives of the Ziskinds, from Soviet Russia to the modern day. The turning plot device is the theft of a valuable Chagall from a museum during a singles cocktail hour. The book is heavy on facts, and oddly enough this plot device is also true. You’re then transported back to Soviet Russia and the brutal nature of what occurred there and elsewhere. In the midst of this is Comrade Marc Chagall. Now, I’m not what I’d call an art aficionado or art-junky but I go to modern art museums, I have art on my walls by famed painters as well as my great grandmother. And I’ve liked Chagall since seeing some more of his work at the Guggenheim, particularly the Green Violinist.

So learning more about what Chagall might have been like was interesting, though not always flattering. I got the sense that Ms. Horn had a bit of an ax to grind and wished to paint Chagall in a negative light. (Yes, that pun was intended.) From her perspective Chagall did not suffer as his fellow Jewish artists did, nor come to their aide or defense. And as it’s written, it seems a bit … selfish and Chagall a bit of a flake. I’m guessing there is another side to the story and am inclined to believe that all artists are cut from a slightly different cloth.

The haunting Soviet era material matches well with other material from Vietnam. The contrast is the modern day material which reads far more like Philip Roth. The adolescent yearning, the internal monologues and general pacing feels very much like Roth. Again, not a bad thing really and makes a bit of sense given the topical material. Tossed in the middle is a mystical quality that never fully worked for me. At times it seemed to work, and at others seemed pried into the narrative.

I’m not sure I was thrilled with the ending, but it would be tough to find a climax that works after such intensity. There were times when I simply had to put the book down and catch my breath. That doesn’t happen to me often enough. So I recommend this book, but read only if you’re willing to conjure up some dreadful realities. Read The World to Come and then read some Christopher Moore.