Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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If the chances of dying in a plane crash are slim, being the sole survivor is even less likely — but that's the premise for two new novels, Ann Napolitano's Dear Edward and Rye Curtis's Kingdomtide.
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Miranda Popkey's novel tackles the complicated issues of female desire, sex and failed relationships through a troubled, unnamed narrator who reports on her conversations with a series of other women.
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Wilson's new novel centers on a young woman taking care of two kids with a disturbing ability: When upset, they burst into flames. But in Wilson's hands, what could be scary is funny, even beautiful.
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In her new novel, Jami Attenberg dives deep into the dark heart of one family over the course of one long day, as their abusive, angry patriarch lies dying in the hospital after a heart attack.
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Ten years after her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, where ornery Olive is learning about compassion, connection, and her own self.
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With her new essay collection, Jamison reverses the arc of The Empathy Exams by moving from the external to the internal, from others' longings and hauntings to her own.
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Patchett's new novel is a story of paradise lost, dusted with fairy tale. It follows two siblings who bond after their mother leaves the family home — an ornate mansion she always hated.
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In her first essay collection, Rachel Cusk writes like someone who has been burned and has reacted not with self-censorship but with a doubling-down on clarity.
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Jacqueline Woodson's exquisitely wrought new novel follows two black families of different classes whose lives become intertwined when their only children conceive a child together in their teens.
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R.L. Maizes' new story collection is a quirky mix of humor, gravity and warmth. She's drawn to outsiders who yearn for connection and who display behaviors and feelings they're not proud of.