There were so many fantastic novels in 2015 — big (“Purity,” “A Little Life,” “Fates and Furies”) and small (“Eileen,” “Our Souls at Night,” “The Book of Aron”). Next year promises to be just as rich in literary delights. Here are a few works of fiction that we’re eager to crack open. How about you?
Coming out in April
“Eligible,” by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House). A retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” this version of the Bennet family takes place in modern day New York and Cincinnati, as the elder Bennet sisters discover the family is in disarray and the younger sisters unemployed and listless. Like the Austen classic, Mrs. Bennet wants to marry off her daughter, but this time, they’re faced with reality tv stars and neurosurgeons instead of British landed gentry.
“Our Young Man,” by Edmund White (Bloomsbury). A former Vogue editor, White writes about an attractive French model who rises to the top of the fashion world — and miraculously stays there for years by seeming forever 23 years old to his older suiters. However, their lavish attention comes at a price.
Coming out in May
“Everyone Brave Is Forgiven,” by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster). A newly qualified school teacher in London and a school official are left behind to teach children not yet evacuated from Blitz-torn London during World War II.
“Zero K,” by Don DeLillo (Scribner). In this speculative sci fi novel, a billionaire develops a method of preserving bodies until some future date when advanced medicine can reanimate them.
“LaRose,” by Louise Erdrich (Harper). When a little boy is accidentally killed, the horrified shooter turns to an Ojibwe tribe tradition as a way of atonement: He gives his own son to the grieving parents. Years later, as both families heal, a vengeful man with a grudge begins to threaten the peace between them.
“Imagine Me Gone,” by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown). A family copes with the grinding challenges of depression across decades, a story told in alternating points of view from each of the five members of the family.
“Modern Lovers,” by Emma Straub (Riverhead). The author of “The Vacationers” returns with a novel about a trio of college friends navigating adult life in their 50s deep in gentrified Brooklyn. As their children reach maturity one summer, and start sleeping together, long held secrets are let loose, challenging these long-held friendships.