The 5 Best Novels of Summer 2013 (Chosen by Karen Russell)
Five flights of fancy recommended by a writer who knows a thing or two about literary pyrotechnics.
Photo: Martha Pavlidou
1 of 5
The Celestials
By Karen Shepard
320 pages;
Tin House
Morally, this is a challenging book. It takes you back in time to 19th-century North Adams, Massachusetts, where a group of Chinese laborers have been brought in to become unwitting strikebreakers. It's based on a true event I'd never heard of—I'd call it historical science fiction. The author excavates entire ways of seeing through her re-creation of a vanished landscape. There's also a moving love story.
— Karen Russell
Published 06/13/2013
