Three novels that shrewdly question the illusion of choice, the dumb luck of birth, and the idea of fate, alongside class and wealth divides and depictions of age and time. Kim Fu’s The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore explores the way a childhood trauma ripples out in ways small and large in the lives of a group of girls. Aja Gabel’s The Ensemble follows four members of a string quartet in a riveting portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth. Lisa Halliday’s “scorchingly intelligent first novel” (New York Times), Asymmetry, introduces a young publishing assistant falling into a relationship with an older writer in NYC before shifting the story (seemingly) entirely to an airport holding room, where an Iraqi-American economist is being detained. Moderated by Rumaan Alam, special projects editor, books, at The New York Times and author of That Kind of Mother.
