The Punch
Noah Hawley
(Chronicle Books)

For many of us family can be both our lifeline and the bane of our existence. So it is with the surviving members of the Henry family on a good day, but blood pressures soar when brothers David and Scott travel cross-country with their ailing mother Doris to their father’s memorial.

Unbeknownst to the brothers, Doris has big plans for the gathering, paving the way for the day to become fodder for a Jerry Springer episode. But before the inevitable train wrecks and dropping of bombshells, we get to know and love the Henrys as they work through grief, strained family dynamics, brushes with spirituality and attempts to right wrongs before they come back to bite them in the ass.

The Punch is funny and moving without being silly or schmaltzy, deftly avoiding the clichés of modern-day family comedies. Hawley is great at creating dysfunctional characters without resorting to stereotypes; the Henrys are cynical and neurotic, but in a relatable way. Following along as they try to regain just a little bit of control is an embarrassing, touching and comical ride.

– Jennifer Elks

The Hakawati
Rabih Alameddine
(Knopf)

Islam, Christianity, Hollywood—all are rooted in legend and subject to exaggeration. Literature, too, is entertainment, and lest anyone forget, Rabih Alameddine’s third novel evokes the pleasures that follow the demand, “tell me a story.”

The Hakawati is effortlessly charming, but woe to the reader who tries to describe the book in under a minute. Like most of my favorite novels, this one is not easily summed up: personal history is experienced through the Armenian genocide, Druze and Maronite minorities, the First Lebanon War, and the resulting diaspora. In twining chapters not unlike Shahrzad’s lifesaving tales, Alameddine chronicles the lives of the al-Kharrats alongside fantastic stories of Fatima and the rise of the Mamluke kings. At the center of the al-Kharrat family opera is the prodigal, Americanized Osama, heir to his grandfather's role as hakawati. But, just as Osama’s flamboyant uncle warns that “belief is the enemy of the storyteller,” so Alameddine knows that a good author avoids didactics. On war and accompanying tragedy his touch is light; he spurns what could be a tedious history and mostly diverts our attention to the more serious matters of life: humor, poetry and wit.

Like Mario Vargas Llosa or Naguib Mahfouz before him, Alameddine is an author who clearly savors his responsibility. It is telling that under the title, where one would expect to see the epithet, “A Novel,” instead we see “A Story.” No small distinction, it means the world – and we should be grateful for the opportunity to sit in the presence of this hakawati.

– Nicole Harvey