The Furrows: An Elegy

"Namwali Serpell won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction in 2020 for her rowdy, polyphonous speculative novel The Old Drift . She returns now with The Furrows, an elegiac and uncanny story of grief, unreliable memories and mistaken identity. When Cee Williams watches her brother Wayne die in her arms, aged 12, something so powerful passes between them that she passes out; when she awakes, his body is gone. This lost brother haunts her for the rest of her life, appearing in the faces of strangers, and dying over and over again in her mind. The Financial Times said that it “confirms Serpell’s place as one of the most innovative and intelligent writers today.” I’m also intrigued by a novella by another Clarke Award-winner , Tade Thompson, who is stepping away from science fiction with Jackdaw , a darkly comic story about a psychiatrist who becomes obsessed with the British painter Francis Bacon. Written in feverish, free associative prose, it’s attracted praise from writers including Will Maclean and Paul Tremblay. Master of horror Stephen King returns with Fairy Tale , in which a high school student inherits great riches—and the key to a parallel universe—overnight. Richard Osman continues his ultra-popular Thursday Murder Club mystery series with The Bullet That Missed , wherein the retiree sleuths tackle a decade-old cold case that, inevitably, soon glows red hot. In November, the four-time Hugo Award-winning fantasy author N.K. Jemisin will publish The World We Make , concluding her Great Cities duology; Esquire called it “hopeful and enthralling.” And I mentioned this last time , but R.F. Kuang’s dark historical fantasy Babel is finally out, and has already raced to the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Fans of Candice Carty-Williams (author of the internationally bestselling Queenie ) will no doubt be racing to the bookshop to pick up a copy of her latest book, People Person , in which a lifestyle influencer, whose glossy exterior hides a deep loneliness, reconnects with estranged family members. And previous Five Books interviewee Bryony Gordon will publish Let Down Your Hair , a YA adaptation of Rapunzel for the social media age. It’s a busy season, as I say, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of it with these highlights. I hope you’ve spotted something to suit your tastes. As ever, we are keen to hear what novels you most looking forward to in Fall 2022—so let us know. Send us a tweet , or post on our Facebook page . Part of our best books of 2022 series."