SIX PACK

Poetic novels and lyric memoirs plumb grief and longing

Keziah Weir

OPEN, HEAVEN

By Sean Hewitt

The poet (Rapture'sRoad)spins a tender, eloquent debut novel: In adulthood a man returns (in place and memory) to the village in northern England where, as a teen, he met Luke, his first love. (Knopf)

THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW

By Yiyun Li

"Facts are the harshest and the hardest part of life," writes Li. After her sons' suicides—Vincent, age 16, in 2017; James, 19, last year—the author contemplates the profound difficulty of continuing on. (FSG)

I REGRET ALMOST EVERYTHING

By Keith McNally

The outspoken restaurateur responsible for such Manhattan institutions as Cafe Luxembourg, Fastis, and Balthazar recounts a full life: his days as a child actor, glittering NYC nightlife, and beyond. (Gallery Books)

THE HOLLOW HALF

By Sarah Aziza

With grace and rigor, the author examines an eating disorder alongside family history (her grandmother's displacement, her father's birth in a Gaza refugee camp) and the swell of her husband's love. (Catapult)

THE DAZZLING PAGET SISTERS

By Ariane Bankes

Celia and Mamaine Paget, identical twins born in 1916, captivated the literati from George Orwell to Albert Camus, as captured through their letters and notebooks, by Celia's daughter.

(McNally Editions)

THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS

By Ocean Vuong

The once-hopeless 19-year-old Hai— would-be writer who never writes and lies to his mom about attending medical school—falls into caring for a Lithuanian widow suffering from dementia in Vuong's newest fiction. (Penguin Press)