The 10 best novels I read that were published in the current decade (2010-19)

Continuing with yesterday's post on the Best Books I read in the 20-teens (2010-19) - yesterday, the top 10 short-story collections and works newly translated into English; today, the top 10 novels I read that were published in the 20-teens (including works in English translation written and first published in the 20-teen decade):

At Night We Walk in Circles, by Daniel Alarcon (2014). A complex and powerful novel about political and literary radicals in a Latin American country much like Chile; Alarcon is an American author, writing in English, but his style is deeply influenced by Latin American authors - and for the betters. This book is one of the few recent novels both politically engaged and powerful as a narrative.

A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson (2016). Yet another novel about Britain and World War II? Yes, but this one rivals Atonement as one of the best on this well-trodden ground. A portrait of a whole family, over the span of a century – and much more readable than its companion volume (Life After Life). 

War and Turpentine, by Stefan Hertmans (2013, translated 2016). A novel in the Tolstoy tradition when it comes to warfare: Battles aren't won by brilliant leadership and strategy, as warfare is chaotic and unpredictable, but rather by the personal strength and valor of individual soldiers - war as seen from the combatants' point of view. Hertmans shows how the experience of warfare shaped (or distorted) the surviving soldier's view of life - and by extension, how the war affected an entire generation and culture: a truly ambitious novel that is sharp and poignant in every scene. 

Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, volumes 1-5 (2009-11, translated 2012-18). Setting aside the somewhat disappointing volume 6, Knausgaard's monumental achievement in the first five volumes recalls in startling detail the course and the events of his difficult life, specifically his struggle to be both a unique and talented person - a writer - and be just an ordinary guy who fits into his society, his family, and his marriage.

Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish (2016). An incredibly powerful, tragic debut novel about two social outsiders – a combat veteran suffering with PTSD and a Chinese immigrant without documentation – who try to make a life together against great odds.  

The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason (2018). Mason can't resist showing off his knowledge of medical history, languages, and other arcana, but he builds from these details a good story set during the first World War that centers on character and that establishes a milieu and historical setting that's  far from most American fiction, contemporary or otherwise. 

Solar Bones, by Mike McCormack (2016). This tour de force novel follows the flow of the thoughts and remembrances (in one single book-length sentence!) of the narrator in what appears to be a single day or perhaps a single afternoon - though his mind roams freely back and forth in time, including recollections from his childhood right up to present-day events, crises, and issues.

Nemesis, by Philip Roth (2010). Roth's final book - he publicly retired from writing in 2012 and he died in 2018 - was one of his best, providing both a final reflection on the world of Newark in the 1940s that was the marrow of Roth's literary contribution and a sly commentary on the Holocaust, as seen from the U.S. 

My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent (2017). It’s not always a compliment to describe a writer's style as cinematic, but in this case, yes, Tallent has a cinematic way of building to a complex, tension-filled dramatic climax; his debut novel altogether comprises an unusual mix of high style and vivid dramatic action – but be forewarned, this novel is extremely violent at times.

Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward (2018). Though I couldn't buy into all the ghost voices Ward uses to tell her multi-layered story, I was moved and impressed by her use of first-person voice to establish a number of radically different characters, her understanding of the difficult life in rural poverty in the Mississippi delta, her information about the horrors of abuse in a Mississippi work prison, and her ability to create characters who are deeply flawed while maintaining her (and our) sympathy and compassion for them.