Drew Toal

A therapist finds a cast of patients that may just be saner. Drew Toal reads Robert Boswell’s new Californian novel.

Fiona Maazel has achieved the rare double: a cult author writing about a cult. Drew Toal on her latest novel.

<p>Novelist Victor LaValle’s <i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400069866/thedaibea-20/">The Devil in Silver</a></i> combines religion, mental illness and horror, and shows how those three easily blend together. By Drew Toal.</p>

From a young man in a coma inhabiting an afterlife, to one year in the lives of two young lovers.

<p>This week: the Paris years of Jackie O, Susan Sontag and Angela Davis, the symmetry and messiness of lost causes, the steampunk <i>City of Bohane</i>, and Adam Wilson is a writer to watch.</p>

This week: The legends that made New York music, a book of short stories that capture nothing less than life, and a man heads south in Lydia Millet’s novel.

From a magical circus troupe to the perilous state of England, our reviewers pick 4 new novels that you won’t want to miss.