Noteworthy Fiction

The most intriguing move Govier makes in this quiet but stirring novel is her decision to wind the story of artist John James Audubon around the much lesser-known story of Henry Wolsey Bayfield. The great mapmaker and the great bird painter meet again and again as they sail along the shore of Quebec. This window into the 19th century and Govier's invention of a friendship between Audubon and Bayfield are rare and captivating. (May 22)

Guterson explores a challenging set of questions without a hint of condescension in this tragicomedy about the persistence of faith. Set in a depressed logging town in Washington State, the story describes a week in which a sexually abused 16-year-old runaway sees visions of the Virgin Mary while picking mushrooms in the woods. Her revelations quickly attract hordes of devotees and challenge a young priest's devotion. (Oct. 9)

"The Great Fire" smolders in the aftermath of World War II, when that calamity threatened to flash back into flame or choke survivors. Aldred, a 32-year-old war hero, comes to Japan to record the obliteration of an ancient culture. Taking up lodging with an Australian couple, he finds solace in their remarkable children - particularly Helen, whom he comes to love. In a novel that would collapse under the weight of pretension if a line were mislaid, Hazzard keeps this romance aloft by virtue of her understanding of human nature. National Book Award winner (Oct. 2)

Holman's robust, witty novel takes place in Three Chimneys, Va., where a young mother has given birth to 11 children and an organic farmer pays tribute to the new president with a mammoth wheel of cheese. Holman keeps all these wonderful characters - including the cows - grounded in her deeper themes about the debt one generation owes another and our lust for independence. (July 31)

Grania lost her hearing at the age of 5, and Itani narrates her life in a voice imbued with the cadences of the deaf girl's thoughts and sensibilities. Soon after she falls in love with a hearing man, he's sent to the trenches of World War I, described here with extraordinary effect. Despite its subjects - war, romance, disability - it's a story of measured emotion, bleached of all sentimentality. (Aug. 21)

Lethem won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999 for "Motherless Brooklyn," and his new novel opens nearby in the early 1970s on a street in Brooklyn that's teetering between gentrification and gang warfare. Lethem's mock-heroic voice, full of innocence and mischief, perfectly captures the challenges of childhood, the desperation to belong, the acute sensitivity to embarrassment, and the unquestioning endurance of adults' absurd behavior. (Sept. 11)

Once upon a time, there was a writer who spun fairy tales into novels for adults. Here, Maguire transports Snow White and the seven dwarfs to 16th-century Italy, and he knows just how to mix a villain's character with equal parts menace and folly. Part of the fun is the way Maguire fulfills but then thwarts expectations about where he's going next, crisscrossing well-worn details of Snow White with threads of history and myth in a weave that's entirely his own design. (Oct. 16)

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