2 Novels of America at Particular, Peculiar Moments

Dear readers,

Long before I realized some of Teddy Roosevelt’s exploits ought to make me squirm, I spent many deliriously happy hours at the Museum of Natural History. Those dioramas! Those tableaux morts! Right after “namer of crayon hues,” the job of positioning dead animals just so seemed like one of the most glamorous vocations out there, an opportunity to freeze Mother Nature herself and examine every last bit of what she was up to.

The novels I write about here remind me of my favorite displays. Both capture extremely precise moments in American history: Miami on the eve of the Bay of Pigs, a California peopled by aging hippies in 1984 who dread Reaganite belt-tightening. Best of all, no animal remains were harmed.

—Joumana

“Mice 1961,” by Stacey Levine

Fiction, 2024

Strange things are going on near Reef Way. Jody and Mice are orphaned half sisters, crushed by the death of their mother and terrified of losing each other. Still, that’s no reason for Jody to be so nasty to Mice, who is forbidden from leaving the house during the day for fear of aggravating her albinism, or for Mice to assault Jody with gnomic questions that would drive even a sphinx bananas.