Novel

Upcoming mystery novel is set at Mount Holyoke College

Upcoming mystery novel is set at Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke’s campus in the nineteenth century is the setting for the upcoming book “Killingly” by Katharine Beutner, a professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Based loosely on true events, the novel follows the search for missing Mount Holyoke student Bertha Mellish. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Beutner described “Killingly” as “a queer historical crime novel … It was a time when there was a lot of anxiety in the culture about women’s roles and this idea about the new woman now as an independent, possibly even financially independent, figure.” 

Female rage and empowerment dominate in Xiran Jay Zhao’s ‘Iron Widow’

Female rage and empowerment dominate in Xiran Jay Zhao’s ‘Iron Widow’

“For eighteen years, my unibrow has saved me from being sold into a painful, terrifying death,” Xiran Jay Zhao writes in their debut novel, “Iron Widow.”

“Iron Widow” is not for the faint of heart.

A story about a thirst for vengeance and hunger for power, brimming with the pain caused by a deeply misogynistic society, the novel is for angry girls — the girls who have been beaten down and poked just enough to snap. For anyone who is aching to break out of the claustrophobic boxes that make up our world — “Iron Widow” is a novel of catharsis, or as the endorsement quote on the cover from E.K. Johnston states, “A primal scream of a book.”

Susanna Clarke’s ‘Piranesi' blends fantasy, expansive language and a stereotypical portrayal of minority characters

Susanna Clarke’s ‘Piranesi' blends fantasy, expansive language and a stereotypical portrayal of minority characters

At around 250 pages, British author Susanna Clarke’s second novel “Piranesi” seems miniscule in comparison to her 800-page debut novel “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.” But with its imaginative world and compelling narrator, “Piranesi” packs a powerful epistemological punch. The book, however, is not without flaws — its portrayal of minority characters ultimately falls short, leaning on worn-out stereotypes of gay men and people of color.


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