Here at EW, we’vealready ravedabout a few exemplary freshman efforts andspoken to authorsof others.
Asymmetryis a novel that at first glance appears like a collection of unrelated novellas.
The connection between the novellas comes thrillingly into focus only on the final pages.
Credit: Simon & Schuster; Grove Atlantic
It’s a recognizable sort of read.
You’ll see how she learned to tell stories about people, power, art, politics about life.
ButAsymmetrygets at hot-button topics like gender and xenophobia in deceptively complex ways.
There is something so refreshing galvanizing, even about that discovery process.
Some of these books are better than others, but regardless,Asymmetrycreates its own category.
Halliday’s big revelation isn’t some jaw-dropping plot point.
Her politics aren’t bleeding out of every turned page.
You discover what she’s writing about as you go along, and then re-discover and re-discover.
Emezi’s exceptionalFreshwateris similarly a novel that sidesteps contemporary fiction’s more obvious beats.
Specifically, it realizes a way of tackling mental illness that’s simultaneously innovative, illuminating, and transporting.
It’s not other-ized here; it’s based in gods and spirits.
Emezi brings Ada from Nigeria to the U.S., from childhood to adulthood.
Along those lines, it recalls the appeal ofAsymmetry.
They compel us to revisit what we think we know through disarmingly fierce prose.
It’s a strategy that rattles with risk.
Fortunately, both Halliday and Emezi bring that in spades.
