New novels from Elizabeth Strout and ‘Pemi Aguda are lonely and enchanting

W.W. Norton; Random House

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In Beloved, Toni Morrison writes of a kind of loneliness that is “wrapped tight like skin.” I don’t think Morrison’s taut simile has been topped, but two new novels attest to the inexhaustibility of language to describe a state we all unwillingly experience.

Peek at the multiple categories that ‘Pemi Aguda’s