Best Reads of 2022

In 2022, as in years past, I read a mix of new and older titles, a hodgepodge of genres, books written in a variety of styles. Dystopian fantasy, horror, historical, suspense, mystery-detective, literary fiction … All are represented to varying degrees in the 51 titles I read in 2022.

I’m drawn to psychological realism: novels and collections of short fiction that illuminate the human condition in the modern and contemporary world. Most of the fiction I read is character-based, meaning the author is writing about people whose world closely resembles our own and relying less on sudden or outlandish plot twists and more on psychological depth and character development to move the story forward. In this kind of fiction, story and character are on a more or less equal footing because story arises from character. The author knows that both elements must thoroughly engage the reader to keep him turning the pages. And for the most part, the books I read do this. The books included here do this very well indeed.

I’ve harped on this before, but it bears repeating. We write fiction because we’re curious about human behaviour and motivation. We read fiction for diversion, for entertainment, to go places we might never visit and experience life from a perspective that is not our own. But we turn the pages to find out what happens next. The books listed below provide plenty of reasons to keep turning the pages.

Dawn Promislow’s slow burning novel, Wan, takes the reader back to apartheid-era South Africa. It is 1972. Jacqueline, an artist—a painter—is a white woman living a comfortable life in suburban Johannesburg with her husband, Howard, a partner in a law firm dealing primarily in corporate law. Jacqueline and Howard have two children, Helena and Stephen. They employ three black workers to perform the household chores. The family is privileged and prosperous. Jacqueline and Howard are also painfully aware that South Africa’s social structure is based on a grotesque injustice, and despite living under a system that favours them because of their skin colour, their political sympathies are emphatically at odds with the country’s authoritarian ruling party. But other than treating their hired help well, there is little they can do. The penalty for dissent is severe, and with government informants everywhere, speaking out will only make them targets for the police. So, like many white South Africans who opposed apartheid, they resist in silence and keep their moral objections to themselves. Then, early in the novel, they are presented with an opportunity to aid the cause in a real way. Howard’s law partner, who has contacts within the ANC (African National Congress), needs to safeguard an anti-apartheid activist who is wanted by police and asks Jacqueline and Howard to provide the man with temporary sanctuary. Joseph Weiss moves into a small building at the rear of their property that they’d been using to store household odds and ends, and in so doing sets off a chain of events that ultimately renders Jacqueline and Howard’s life in South Africa untenable. Fifty years later, Jacqueline, widowed and living in New York, unburdens herself, narrating an account of those months of Joseph’s tenancy, telling us, “I’m too old to hold on to this story any more. So I’m going to tell it to you.” Wan recounts an exquisitely suspenseful tale of searing guilt, moral ambivalence, misplaced trust, and heart-rending honesty. Promislow relates Jacqueline’s story in crystalline prose, using a contemplative voice tinged with weary resignation that pulls the reader in and doesn’t let go until the final pages. Promislow is patient and thoughtful, and she expects the same of her reader. The story is deliberately paced. Details and events accumulate gradually, ramping up the stakes and building tension to an excruciating level. The book provides a quick, compulsive read, but the rewards of this vividly imagined, elegantly crafted novel are many. With Wan, Dawn Promislow establishes herself as a bracing, shining talent. Readers of this, her second book and first novel, will be eagerly anticipating her next.

The connections that bind people together, that shape destinies and affect lives for good or ill in the contemporary world, is fertile terrain that Alexander MacLeod explores in his second collection of short fiction. These eight elegantly written stories bring searing focus to human relationships tested by unforeseen circumstance. MacLeod’s characters are distant relatives, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, lovers, neighbours and strangers who have ventured or been drawn into situations that threaten or challenge something they hold dear. David, the narrator of “Lagomorph”—father of three grown children and separated from his wife, Sarah—is living by himself in the family home with Gunther, the pet rabbit. What blew the marriage apart? “I think we just wore down,” he explains in blasé terms, “and eventually, we both decided we’d had enough and it was time to move on.” The separation is amicable. But David, alone and adrift, finds his life profoundly altered. Almost inevitably his days revolve around the aging rabbit, Gunther, who is his anchor to the past and his fragile bridge to the future. David claims that all is well, that he’s adjusting. But when a crisis occurs—one that places Gunther’s life in danger—his fear is existential. In “The Dead Want,” the tragic death of his 20-year-old cousin Beatrice brings Joe’s family back to Nova Scotia for the funeral, where, finding the place and the people different from how he remembers them, he is emboldened to act out the changes he sees in himself. In “The Ninth Concession,” which is set in Ontario farming country, the young narrator’s long-time friendship with Allan, the son of his well-off neighbours, the Klassens, abruptly ends after a disturbing, late-night encounter. “Once Removed” tells the story of Amy and Matt, who are manipulated into visiting Matt’s great aunt. But the old lady’s true motive for issuing the invitation doesn’t become clear until after they arrive at her apartment. And the collection’s final gripping story, “The Closing Date,” told in retrospect a few years after the event, describes the eerie close encounter between a young family and a murderer on the day the couple are set to close the deal on their new house. Throughout, the narrative tone is contemplative and unhurried. MacLeod writes with unfailing ease and confidence; his uncluttered prose sparkles, seducing the reader with natural, plain-spoken rhythms, while the stories themselves enthrall. The seeming effortlessness with which these tales of modern angst are composed is deceptive: a true artist in total control of his craft, MacLeod keeps the nuts and bolts—the sweat and agony--of the creative process well hidden from view. The collection sets its sights on the anxieties that plague everyone living in this fraught modern world, the myriad dilemmas, large and small, with which we grapple on a daily basis. Moving and memorable, Animal Person confirms in triumphant fashion Alexander MacLeod’s reputation as an author of bold, ingenious short fiction.

Klara Hveberg’s stunning debut novel reaches to the core of what it means to be human and vulnerable. Rakel is an only child, the prodigiously gifted daughter of a Norwegian father and Asian mother. She grows up in a small town, raised in an intellectually vibrant household immersed in art, music and literature. Not surprisingly, with her intellect setting her apart from her peers, she is often lonely and has difficulty making friends. As she matures, a passion for numbers and patterns emerges, which after high school motivates her to pursue a career in mathematics. She moves to Oslo to attend university, and there meets Professor Jakob Krogstad. The two develop a profound camaraderie, talking puzzles and problems. But it is at the primal level, when in Jakob’s presence, that Rakel is left aroused and breathless. In a short time—even though Jakob is more than 20 years her senior and a husband and father—Rakel and Jakob become lovers. In conversation, Jakob compares Rakel to the 19th-century Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya, a young genius who also had an affair with an older male mentor, and reveals he is planning to write a novel about Sofia’s life. Sofia becomes an object of Rakel’s curiosity, a constant presence in her thoughts, and she muses over a period of Sofia’s life when she seemed to renounce mathematics. At about the novel’s mid-point, with Rakel’s studies advancing and her accomplishments mounting, she is stricken with a baffling illness that saps her strength and renders her unable to work. At the same time, she wants Jakob to commit to their relationship, which he has promised to do when his daughters are old enough to accept his choice and live their lives without him. But this is not to be, and when Jakob chooses his wife Lea over her, Rakel is devastated. In the end, Rakel, now in her thirties and suffering debilitating symptoms, retreats from university life, returns to the small town of her youth and surrenders herself to the care of her parents. Hveberg’s novel, arresting, engaging, thought-provoking, is a cerebral exercise. And yet it is also a deeply touching inquiry into the nature of love and the spiritual connections that can arise between human beings. Permeated by melancholy and a sense of loss, Rakel’s story ebbs and flows like a body of water. Rakel, swept along by the current, subject to physical forces beyond her control, lives a life of the mind but is continually at the mercy of her heart, which yearns for the very things it cannot have. Impeccably translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough, this is beautiful writing that takes the reader on a surprising and unforgettable journey. Gripping and poignant, Lean Your Loneliness Slowly Against Mine engages the mind and the spirit like a great piece of music: harmonious, eloquent, haunting.

Alice Munro’s first collection of short stories is not simply a landmark work of Canadian fiction—it is a significant contribution to fiction written in English. These early stories are steeped in a glow of nostalgia and often turn their focus to young people yearning for independence and chafing against the role that society has assigned them. Also featured prominently are strained or lost emotional connections and diverging generational attitudes toward life and love. The settings are rural and small-town southwestern Ontario in the early to middle decades of the 20th century, a time of evolving lifestyles and hardscrabble self-sufficiency. A number of stories are narrated by children and depict their wonder and apprehension as they come face to face with a confusing but enthralling adult world. In “Walker Brothers Cowboy,” the young narrator and her younger brother go for a drive into the country with their father, a traveling salesman. Eventually they end up at a house where they meet a woman, Nora, whom, the narrator gradually realizes, is her father’s old sweetheart, and the shock of this hidden dimension of her father’s past thus revealed unveils to her the world as a place of depth and nuance that “darkens and turns strange” the moment you turn your back on it. Other stories place young women in awkward or oppressive social situations resulting from clashing attitudes toward gender roles. In “The Shining Houses,” a young mother, Mary, lives in a growing neighbourhood of newly constructed dwellings mingled in with the old. Mary admires her neighbour, Mrs. Fullerton, a resident of long standing, a cantankerous but strong-willed, independent woman who keeps chickens and sells eggs. Later, at a children’s birthday party that Mary attends with other young mothers like herself along with their young husbands, the conversation turns to a general disgust with Mrs. Fullerton’s “rundown” property and a plan to use a city ordinance to have her evicted. When Mary is asked to sign a petition she refuses, but her confusion is profound, and she leaves the party haunted by what she’s done to herself by resisting a notion that to her seems reprehensible but to others seems righteous and necessary. And in “The Office” a young mother, an aspiring fiction writer, bravely defies social and domestic norms by renting office space where she can work in peace, free of family distractions. But, to her chagrin, her concentration is disturbed, maddeningly and repeatedly, by her condescending and meddling landlord, who refuses to treat her and her artistic goals seriously. The stories are bracingly open-ended and, in their structural elasticity, imply endless vistas of narrative possibility. Throughout, Munro’s prose is precise and controlled and crowded with sensory detail. Her settings live and breathe: the natural world shimmers and pulsates; every texture, every sight, sound and smell of every interior space is rendered with stunning physicality that haunts the reader’s imagination like a lived memory. A virtuoso performance, The Dance of the Happy Shades received widespread acclaim when it was published in 1968 when the author was 37. A must-read for fans of the short story, this book also belongs on the reading list of every student of 20th-Century fiction.

Published in 1962, Janet Frame’s extraordinary third novel chronicles the adventures of three people living “on the edge of the alphabet”: a desolate outpost of the soul where feelings of worthlessness and crushing loneliness cannot be expressed. New Zealander Toby Withers, an epileptic, suffers as well from an acute form of social awkwardness that leaves him isolated and fretful. Zoe Bryce, a depressed middle-aged spinster from England, has left her position as a schoolteacher in humiliation after developing amorous feelings for a colleague that were not reciprocated. And boastful know-it-all Pat Keenan, an Irishman, lives an exceedingly prosaic life in London, where he drives a bus. The three cross paths on a passenger ship traveling from New Zealand to London. After the death of his supportive mother, and in defiance of his pragmatic father, Toby has decided to exert his independence, strike out on his own and see the world. He is also smarting after being rejected by a young woman whom he was convinced loved him because she tolerated his company and was on occasion nice to him. Zoe’s “working vacation” in NZ is over, and she is returning to England to face an uncertain future. And Pat is returning home as well after time off from his job. On board the ship, each traveling alone, Toby, Zoe and Pat form a loosely compatible trio, and in London their connection endures even as their quiet desperation intensifies. Pat returns to his squalid rooming house, where he has convinced Zoe that she should live as well, while Toby finds cramped, disagreeable quarters elsewhere. To support themselves, Zoe and Toby take menial, unfulfilling employment. For a time, Toby, Zoe and Pat are able to sustain themselves on their delusions. Toby, though largely unschooled and barely literate, has convinced himself that he will someday write a novel about “The Lost Tribe,” a notion, encouraged by his mother but dismissed as ridiculous by his father, that he guards closely and that has occupied him for years. Zoe, having been kissed on board the ship by a drunken sailor (the first kiss of her life), clings to the hope that love is not completely out of reach. And Pat makes his unexceptional life tolerable by puffing himself up with self-important claims, habitually exaggerating his accomplishments, offering unsolicited advice, and pushing people around, especially those, such as Zoe, who lack confidence and will be overwhelmed by his persistence. Eventually, however, each is compelled to give up on their dreams, with consequences that range from unfortunate to disastrous. The novel’s loose structure and Frame’s reliance on distorted interior monologue contribute a hazy, dreamlike quality to the action, which drifts from one event or encounter to the next. Throughout, Frame’s magical, often disorienting language leaps from the page: “But it is people, their shape, their presence, that are bulwark, bung-hole, asbestos wall. For the wind blows from fire, as well as from ice.” Impressionistic, sometimes bizarre, but bracingly original, The Edge of the Alphabet is also a compassionate and moving novel, one that confronts an age-old and tragic human enigma: that loneliness and its devastating effects can persist in a world filled with people searching for connection.

In Quiet Time, Grace is growing up in rural, coastal Newfoundland with two siblings and a pair of self-absorbed, artist parents. Grace’s father is a writer who warns the children not to bother him when he’s working, and for good measure has placed a creepy mask on his office door. Grace’s mother, a painter and sculptor, often goes missing, abandoning the family and staying absent for days or weeks at a time. Grace, preternaturally observant, is also a creative spirit who wants to be a writer, though she gets little encouragement at home and, after confiding in her English teacher and seeking his praise and approval, finds herself in a sexually abusive relationship. Katherine Alexandra Harvey’s debut novel chronicles Grace’s descent into addiction and mental distress, and her eventual recovery. At the age of seventeen, she meets Jack, a painter and friend of her mother. Jack also sells weed and consumes a variety of addictive substances, to which he introduces Grace. Grace, craving attention, falls in love with Jack, and over the course of their volatile, years-long relationship, becomes addicted to opiates and booze. Their lust- and drug-fueled partnership reaches its climax when Grace delivers a stillborn son. And it’s not long before Grace has attained new depths of despondency, resumes cutting herself and survives a suicide attempt. By this time Jack, whose painting career is flourishing, has left Grace for another woman. Harvey’s novel is unsparing and uncompromising and the story it tells is bleak. But Grace, alone with her grief and hitting bottom, somehow summons the strength to seek treatment and get herself admitted to hospital, pulling herself back from the brink just in time. Quiet Time, Harvey’s debut novel--difficult, disturbing, sometimes deeply unpleasant but always psychologically convincing--is also a strangely uplifting and triumphant work of gritty realism. With this novel, Katherine Alexandra Harvey announces herself as a fearless talent worth watching.