Pan, by Michael Clune: A Splatter Pattern of Images, Light, and Color

I love it when a book unwittingly (or perhaps very wittingly) describes itself. Here's a sentence from Michael Clune's debut novel, Pan: "Good writing, I came to believe, was the careful, painstaking replacement of each part of the world with a part that looked the same, but was deeper, more mysterious, richer."

Good writing -- which this book decidedly exhibits -- describes the world in new ways. It attempts to take something common and make it extraordinary, to render something recognizable with a fresh veneer, to give readers a new and original way of looking at the world.

No wonder writing is so goddamn difficult. 

In Pan, though, Michael Clune succeeds in doing exactly what his character describes as good writing: He uses an array of linguistic acrobatics to make a story deeper, more mysterious, and richer. A seemingly straightforward plot about a teenager suffering from panic attacks and anxiety and trying to figure out why and how to ease his pain is rendered both recognizable and empathetic, but also completely fresh.

Readers often bandy about the cliché that good writers just see the world differently than normal people. Do they, though? Or are they just able to describe their experiences of the world better than anyone else? 

In fact, that's really what this novel is about: How do each of see the world? How are our experiences, both external and internal, unique or universal? How do we tell? Sometimes something that seems universal might be actually be unique. 

There's the classic color conundrum, which I honestly think about quite a lot. So I nearly fell off my chair when I read this sentence from Clune: "No one knows how color really looks to anyone else. It's the definition of a private experience. All we share are the names." 

Clune then goes off on a long tangent about the color of the sky in Gilligan's Island, which is both hilarious and profound, and an example of the many joys in reading this book. 

Indeed, in total, this novel is a splatter pattern of descriptions of images and light and color literally unlike anything I've ever read. Language in Clune's writing is malleable, formable, turn-able, twistable, and the result is writing so unexpectedly fresh and original, it was hard for me to put this book down. Not because the plot was riveting, but just because I couldn't wait to see what new joys the next sentence would bring. 

Almost unfailingly, the next sentence was surprising. I probably read this book way too quickly -- sometimes I got a little lost in the abstractions. Or maybe they were just too abstract and worked better in Clune's brain than they did on the page? Either way, this novel is truly a singular reading experience.

The Quirk's The Thing: Five Books That Make You Go Hmm...(In a Good Way)

I just finished reading Kate Folk's debut novel, Sky Daddy -- a really fun and funny read, which is successful because Folk is able to keep the main quirk of the novel going throughout the whole book. The main quirk? The protagonist is sexually attracted to planes. I know! But it works. And I was in awe of how Folk MAKES this work throughout a carefully crafted plot about making your way in an absurd world. 

The book got me thinking about other sort of quirky novels in which a character has an odd trait or sexual proclivity or just something generally quirky that you wouldn't think could work for a whole novel, but totally does. Here are five.

Nothing To See Here, by Kevin Wilson -- My go-to summation of this novel that hasn't let me down yet: It's the funniest book you'll ever read about spontaneously combusting children. Very much like in Folk's Sky Daddy, I went into the novel assuming the quirk (some may say "plot device" or "premise") is a metaphor for something, but about two-thirds of the way through the novel, I was having too much fun and gave up trying to figure out what it was.

Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino -- Here, the quirk is that the character is an alien and her sexual proclivity is actually that she doesn't much like sex at all. To read this book, though, is to love it -- and the quirk that the character is an alien and has to report back on the absurdities of humanity, which does manage to work all the way through the novel, is more timely now than ever. 

The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman -- A very deep cut here (in fact, I just discovered as I went to try to link to this book that it's out of print, and that both blew my mind and made me sad), but I love Ned Beauman and if you're looking for something really quirky, really strange, and REALLY EFFING FUNNY, try this book about a dude in 1930s Germany whose quirk is that, against all odds, he just can't seem to get laid. Here's a quote from the book that may help you determine whether or not you'll like it: "Love is the foolish overestimation of the minimal difference between one sexual object and another." Make sense? Good. 😂

Bunny, Mona Awad -- Maybe this books is less quirky and more just "WTF DID I JUST READ?"...but in a good way, yes?  I guess I'm cheating a little here including this book because it could technically be categorized as horror, and then all bets are off regarding quirk. But Bunny is unique enough -- and the "rules" of the novel inventive enough and work well enough all the way through -- that I'd be remiss NOT to include it. (The sequel to Bunny titled We Love You, Bunny, is due out September 23.

Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon -- Slothrop, Pynchon's quirkiest of all quirky characters, gets a boner in the exact spot a rocket is going to land. Why? How? Does it matter? Who effing knows. A decade or so ago, I spent six months reading this book -- and Slothrop's boner quirk is basically the only thing I remember about it. Well, that and there's a chapter narrated by a lightbulb.  

What am I missing here? Give me your favorite novels with a quirky plot device! 

Waterline, by Aram Mrjoian: All Happy Families Are Different

Tolstoy famously wrote "Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is, of course, bullshit. Well, the second part is probably right, but the first part makes no sense. What even is a "happy family"? Does a "happy family" require that every member of the family is happy 24/7?  What happens when a happy family suffers a tragedy? Do they immediately become in irredeemably unhappy family? 

Aram Mrjoian's debut novel Waterline is a beautifully rendered portrait of a previously happy family, the Kurkjians, who become an unhappy family when tragedy strikes. 

Brothers Edgar and Karo, live next door to each other with their wives and families in Grosse Ile, Michigan, a small community south of Detroit. When Karo's daughter Mari commits suicide, both families are jolted from their quiet, middle-class lives. 

Mrjoian's portrays each family member's attempt to come to terms with the trauma over the course of a couple months in the immediate aftermath of Mari's death. One goes on a cross-country roadtrip. One finds relief in pot and booze. One, has an affair.  

All the while, the legend of their patriarch Gregor, who escaped the Armenian Genocide and heroically helped save members of his village, casts a contextual shadow over the family's post traumatic resilience. In fact, I'd argue that family legends -- not how families are unhappy -- are what make even happy families unique.

I loved this book -- read it in two days. (I can't help but think I when I read a book so quickly that at some level it must be frustrating to the writer to spend so long writing, polishing, and publishing a novel, only to have it whisked through like a dinner buffet. Sorry, Aram!) Mrjoian writes with subtle humor, deep insight, and sharp wisdom. He's a joy to read, and I can't wait to see what he does next! 

The New Dork Review Best Books of 2025...So Far

I thought it was strange that "best of the year so far" lists started appearing in mid-May this year. What's happening? Way too early! Does Esquire Magazine not know how to count? (Because if you're going to do a mid-year "best of" list, you have to at least wait until the halfway point of the year, right? I know, I know, Old Man Yells at Cloud.) 

But so, now that we ARE past the halfway point of the year, here are my six favorite books of 2025 so . 

Home of the American Circus, by Allison Larkin -- I rather like this quote from my original review of this fantastic novel, so here you go again: "The novel is about how to re-carve out your space in the world when you basically have to start from scratch. It's about choosing your friends and the people you love carefully...and cutting out the people in your life who hurt you, even when they're family. Family is a privilege, not a responsibility."

The Heart of Winter, by Jonathan Evison -- One of the highlights of my year so far is this conversation at Chicago Review of Books with Evison about this novel -- his best yet, in my view. This was the first 2025 book I read, and it'd be a massive upset if this sweet tale of a 70-year marriage doesn't wind up on this same list at the end of the year, too.

So Far Gone, by Jess Walter -- Jess Walter, as you know if you read this post, is one of my all-time favorites, and this book feels like something of a "greatest hits" album for his career. In the best possible way.

The Antidote, by Karen Russell -- This is easily the biggest surprised-that-I-liked-it-so-much book of 2025 so far. A multiple narrator, magical realism, historical fiction...that somehow just works amazingly well. Part of the reason it works amazingly well is that Russell writes sentences that leave you breathless. 

Deep Cuts, by Holly Brickley -- This is the recommended-to-me book of 2025 that now I can't stop recommending to everyone else. A story about the fraught process of collaborative creation, especially when feelings get involved. 

The Savage Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie -- This is the best genre-bending novel of the year so far -- a thriller with the heart of literary fiction. I was so excited to hear Ron Currie was back this year, and even more excited at how great this novel is. 

The Whyte Python World Tour, by Travis Kennedy: Don't Need Nothin' But a Good Time

In John Wray's recent metal novel Gone to the Wolves, there's a scene at a party in late-1980s LA. The characters, who are into death and extreme metal, take in a full room of glammed-out buttrockers and wonder, wouldn't this whole scene just come crashing down if one person were to look around and laugh at them. I mention that now both because that is an absolutely hilarious observation, and because it's a perfect preamble to this review. 

Sure, the 80s glam/buttrock/hair metal scene seems objectively funny in retrospect. But what if there was a method to the hairsprayed, headbanging madness? In Travis Kennedy's hugely fun debut novel The Whyte Python World Tour, we are taken on a wyld ryde with the world's greatest glam rock hair metal band as they quite literally endeavor to change the world. 

Wow, is this book fun...and yeah, a lot silly. 

Our star is one Rikki Thunder, a drummer for a just-hanging-on hair metal band called Qyksand. But Rikki finds his fortunes turn when a beautiful woman named Tawny (if you didn't read her name and, like me, immediately think of this 1987 Whitesnake video, well, I'm sorry your sexual awakening wasn't more fun) enters his life. At first, Tawny seems like a typical 80s metal groupie, prowling the Sunset Strip for her next score. But as Rikki soon learns, Tawny is much more complex. She gets him an audition for the up-and-coming band Whyte Python, which he nails, and the band begins its quick ascent to rock stardom.

But here's the question: Can butt rock really change the world? In the waning days of the Cold War, it just might. Whyte Python whips around the world, playing for rock-starved audiences behind the Iron Curtain, as various intelligence agencies and secret police organizations jockey for control of the band's tour and the hearts and minds of its fans. 

The flap copy for this novel describes it this way: "Crafted on the satirical knife-edge between high suspense and headbanging hilarity." I'd say it very much crosses the line into hilarity -- it's more spoof than satire. But what it does well is make you keep turning the pages to find out what ridiculous goofball scheme these rock stars will get up to next. And of course there's a big twist. 

Unlike Whyte Python's power to change the world, this book may not change your life. But it will leave you with so many good laughs. If you dug the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Rock Star or the more recent Netflix movie Metal Lords, which my brother Geoff and only partly facetiously call "the greatest movie of all time," you'll love this book, too.

Like a butt rock song itself, it's pure brain candy -- 400 pages of dumb fun. I had no idea this book was in the world until a few weeks ago when the brilliant Liberty Hardy of Book Riot fame posted about a new novel that's an "80s metal band spy adventure." I freaked the f&*k out, honestly -- talk about a book written squarely in my wheelhouse. And it delivered: What great fun! Bret Michaels even makes an appearance. 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong: Beauty in the Sorrow

The heavy metal band Trivium isn't your traditional heavy metal band. To accompany the band's crushing guitar riffs, frontman Matt Heafy writes poetic, evocative lyrics based on Greek myths, traumatic events from his childhood, and art, war, and history. I love the stories in the band's songs as much as I love their sound.

When I picked up Ocean Vuong's stunning new novel The Emperor of Gladness, it only took a few pages before Trivium's song "Beauty in the Sorrow" became the theme music for this read. Sure, a heavy metal song and a literary novel may sound like an odd pairing. But odd pairings are very much the point of The Emperor of Gladness. A major theme is that we should look deeper into the disparate, and when we do, we can often find commonalities.

Vuong, of course, is also known for his poetic, evocative prose, and though this is the first time I've read him, I suspect this novel is fairly representative of his style. What surprised me about this book, though, is how readable and accessible it is. Sharply crafted sentences. Images that make your jaw drop. But also, characters who are doing interesting things, have fascinating backstories, and interact with each other such that even if there's not much plot, you still read along quite quickly.

The Emperor of Gladness is set in 2009 amidst the Great Recession in a small, drug-addled, rusty town in Connecticut. It's about two sad (indeed, sorrowful) characters who form an unexpected symbiotic relationship which blooms into a deep friendship. When we first meet 19-year-old Hai, he's about to jump off a bridge and end his short, drug-addicted life. But Grazina, an 82-year-old Lithuanian woman, sees him and talks him down. Grazina, who is descending into dementia, knows she needs help and so invites Hai, who has no where else to go either, to live with her. The story follows the two of them as they lean on each other to navigate this confusing world that is stacked against both of them.

If that doesn't exactly sound like a page-turner, I'm here to tell you this novel will surprise you in so many ways. There's a scene set in a slaughterhouse. One set during an amateur wrestling show at a dive bar. And lots of space dedicated to the day-to-day of a crew of fast food workers. Not your usual fare in hyper-literary novels. How does this possibly work?  

It works because it's all so relatable. The novel is about finding support and friendship in unexpected places. It's about sifting through the myths, lies, and misinformation with which we're constantly pelted to find truth. And it's about finding elegance amidst the chaos and sadness of modern life -- the beauty in the sorrow. 

Look for The Emperor of Gladness on lots of year-end "best of" lists, and don't be surprised if it takes home one of the Big Literary Awards, as well.