This Month

The conflicts we tackle this month range from the intangible to the all-too-real. Newcomer Jesse Ball delivers a metaphysical thriller about a doomsday plot that may or may not exist. Ann Fessler collects interviews with mothers who gave up their children for adoption in the pre-Roe era. Mike Davis traces a compact history of the car bomb, while photographer Gillian Laub dispatches intimate portraits from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. South African novelist Zakes Mda gives an outsider's perspective on a turbulent America, while Haitian-born Edwidge Danticat charts the toll of immigration in a family memoir. Two writers who made their names on exquisite short stories deliver with highly anticipated novels: In Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson delves into the CIA's shady operations in Vietnam. We also interview Junot Díaz about the tortuous writing process that led to his debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.