Mark's Top 10 Books of 2020
2020. Enough has been said about this year. Despite the global pandemic, the election and the general craziness of the times I did what I’ve always done, I read. I read a lot of old books and a lot of new books. This list is simply ten of my favorite books that were published this year. There were many books that I loved and inspired me, but now, in November, these are the ones that stand out the most.
Already a favorite writer of mine, the first two parts of Fosse’s sextet, SEPTOLOGY, exceeded my expectations. The novel follows a widowed painter as he talks to himself, his dead wife, his own döppelganger as well as younger versions of himself. The book is very acessible and the reader is quickly lost in the author’s profound meditations on God, love, art, addiction, and friendship. Without being pretentious, this is literature with a capital L and the book feels more like a symphony or a sculpture than fiction.
A historical romp. A feminist adventure. A South American western. There’s so many ways to describe this stunning novel and none of them come close. It’s moving and intelligent and funny and all of it is fun (so much fun). Follow China and her cohorts as they cross the Pampas of Argentina on horseback and covered wagon. Are there drunken orgies? Yes. But there’s also serious considerations of colonialism, culture, and nature that is never far away. A great novel.
Never has a novel about employment been so hysterical and fun. Of course, the ‘employment’ in Leichter’s brilliant debut could be a pirate ship as easily as a haunted house. An absolutely bonkers and singular look at our jobs, our souls, and our fates. The difficult balancing act of ‘fun and smart’ is handled with deft imagination and complete confidence.
I don’t normally enjoy novels about a character ‘trying’ to write a novel, but in Léger’s gifted hands the reader is given a jewel of a hybrid novel, a book that seamlessly vacillates between memoir, fiction, and the tragic story of real-life Italian artist Pippa Bacca. Don’t worry about the subject or that’s it’s the final third of a triptych - just let the language sweep you away.
Winner of this year’s International Booker Prize, this novel focuses on a Dutch farming family wrestling with grief after the drowning of the eldest son. Seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl, this visceral and haunting (and sometimes funny) book achieves a state of transcendence through the art of words.
A slim and powerful novel about occupation, violence, and the crimes that history buries. Told in two parts, the first takes place in 1949 and portrays the rape and murder of a young Bedouin by Israeli soldiers. The second part is set in contemporary Palestine where a young woman becomes fascinated with the story of this tragedy. What follows is a haunting knife-blade of a novel that stares at the violent truth without blinking.
One of Argentina’s most exciting writers, Saccamanno’s slim novel tells the story of an office clerk in an unhappy marriage and yet, the book does so much more. Set in an unnamed city beset by guerilla violence, revolution, cloned dogs, and attack helicopters, the book feels like a day in the life of an innocouos ‘everyman’ but set in a grim future. A sharp, angular novel about marriage, the workplace, and the constant, often uphill battle for joy, it also asks: is there a place for love, goodness, and a belief in the future?
A strange and elegant book about art, gender, and an experimental drug. An unknown city is the setting of this beautifully subtle book that feels like the morning after unsettling dreams; things are askew and the reader is left to wonder why.
A young man looks back on his youth in the 1980’s and the disappearance of his mother. What begins as a mystery is a thoughtful and profound meditation on family, youth, and the void left from secrets. A wonderful novel about Mexico, growing up, and the secrets of the past.
A hysterical, subversive, stream of conscious rant, all told from the examination chair of a doctor’s office. A young German, living in London, unburdens herself to a doctor. Brilliant and singular.
Ferrante already gets enough praise and attention, however she deserves it. This novel, like her earlier novels, is razor sharp, deeply psychological, and unafraid to discuss what’s inside the hidden closets of every marriage.