Dangerous Territories

These thought-provoking literary reads delve into the shadows of dangers lurking in contemporary life.

C Pam Zhang, acclaimed for her debut novel, “How Much of These Hills Is Gold,” flipped the classic western genre on its head. With her latest work, “Land of Milk and Honey,” she ventures into sci-fi territory, and again adeptly turns the story into something unexpected.

Set in the not-too-distant future with an unsettlingly plausible reality, we are transported to a dystopian world where smog has destroyed the earth’s crops. A severe food shortage plunges humankind into darkness and famine. Governments provide bags of gray “Mung” protein flour to feed its citizens.

An unemployed and unnamed young American chef of Chinese descent is hired to cook for an “elite research community” situated on a mountaintop in the Italian Alps. There, an enigmatic billionaire entrepreneur and his daughter conduct secret agricultural experiments to stave off environmental extinction by growing crops and breeding rare animals.

The venue is a bubble of privilege providing indulgent experiences for the uber-rich who are invited as potential investors. The exclusive enclave comes with excessive feasts featuring lavish tastings of rare delicacies. The pleasures of fresh warm sunshine and fluffy soufflés, as well as the attraction of new company, awaken the young chef’s appetite for food, sex, and life.

A darker reality emerges when the mission evolves into a moral dilemma for the young chef. Zhang’s sensual and shocking tale is a biting exploration of the allure of power and security and asks, at what price does that desire lose its flavor and become a taste too hard to swallow?

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Author Claire Keegan’s gems, “Foster” and “Small Things Like These,” are spare yet profoundly powerful reads. Her newest offering, “So Late in The Day: Stories of Women and Men,” follows suit. This novella of three short stories can be read in one sitting, but will stay with you long after.

The contemporary nature of these protagonists and subjects appears to be a departure from Keegan’s other recent novellas, but the surprise is that two of the stories were published in her early days. What is evident is her consistent prowess in masterfully creating characters in so few words, along with powerful narratives that build tension. With these stories, the tensions morph into threats with varying degrees of danger.

In the first story, “So Late in the Day,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 2022, we meet a middle-aged man mulling the demise of his engagement to his French fiancée. His recollections evolve from mild laments to something darker as he exposes his true self. In “The Long and Painful Death,” from Keegan’s 2007 collection of stories, a female writer selected for a competitive literary retreat at a cottage formerly owned by a Nobel laureate, is disrupted by a literature professor. His presence becomes increasingly threatening as he exposes his opinions of her, but the writer manages to get the final word. In the last story, “Antarctica,” published in 1999, a married woman explores an affair with a stranger that turns from an exciting encounter to true peril, and leaves us with a disturbing scenario fit for a horror movie.

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National Book Award-winner Sigrid Nunez’s latest novel, “The Vulnerables,” is an expressive exploration of the fragility of relationships and emotional connections. Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, we follow a diverse group of characters navigating life and work in the lockdown-induced world.

An astute narrative is delivered by an unnamed writer narrator (whom the author hints may be herself), reflecting on all the “vulnerables,” people left even more adrift by the disruptions to their routine interactions. She crafts an intersection of interesting characters, from a temporarily homeless college student to a memorable parrot named Eureka, for whom she housesits. In the absence of a firm plotline, the writer/Nunez ruminates on what to write about as she muses on everything from Joan Didion to Donald Trump.

A skillful essayist, Nunez captures the complexities of the human condition and the nuances of loneliness, love, and loss. Sprinkling humor throughout, she remarks on the delicate balance between safety and vulnerability and reveals how the challenge of modern living makes each of us a “vulnerable.”