--- title: Top 10 Novels 2017: Sing, Unburied Sing, Manhattan Beach description: Strong writing and fresh storytelling unite these 10 novels, from Jesmyn Ward's "Sing, Unburied Sing" to Mohsin Hamid's "Exit West." canonical: https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-21T12:00:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:20.332Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Top 10 Novels of 2017 og:description: From "Sing, Unburied, Sing" to "Lincoln in the Bardo" og:url: https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78940b0811e67fed/6988e64acf40a8c39bc4a407/best-fiction-book.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Best-Books-Fiction-top-10-2017 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Top 10 Novels of 2017 twitter:description: From "Sing, Unburied, Sing" to "Lincoln in the Bardo" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78940b0811e67fed/6988e64acf40a8c39bc4a407/best-fiction-book.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Top 10 Novels of 2017 by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Nov 21, 2017 12:00 PM UTC  Random House; Knopf Publishing Group; Scribner; Scribner; Riverhead' Photo Illustration by Allison Schaller by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Nov 21, 2017 12:00 PM UTC Fiction publishers complained that 2017 was a difficult year to get attention in a fast-moving media climate that was intensely political. But [some of the year’s best novels](http://time.com/4787988/best-novels-2017-so-far/) spoke to current events, whether directly (as in [Mohsin Hamid’s refugee story](http://time.com/4606077/mohsin-hamid-exit-west-refugees/) _Exit West_) or indirectly (George Saunders’s [_Lincoln in the Bardo_ ](http://time.com/4672411/george-saunders-lincoln-bardo-abraham/)is about the Civil War, but its comments on race feel relevant to the present). Other common themes emerge: new parenthood, a search for identity, an obsession with the past. Several of them feature ghosts. But two elements unite every title on the list: compelling writing and fresh storytelling. ## 10\. [_New People_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159448709X/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=159448709X&linkId=50fdb4f75fd75b2246d1c11673681cd5), Danzy Senna  Riverhead Books Riverhead Books Senna’s latest racial satire focuses on a multiracial couple, Khalil and Maria, in which each half is grappling with complicated feelings about identity. With humor, understanding and a touch of sympathy, Senna’s novel is both knowing and biting. [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159448709X/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=159448709X&linkId=50fdb4f75fd75b2246d1c11673681cd5) ## 9.[_Days Without End_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014311140X/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=014311140X&linkId=b33627c9446afb1c195f76191e430c0b)_,_ Sebastian Barry  Viking Viking In this riff on the American frontier genre, narrator Thomas McNulty and his sweetheart John Cole live through a series of trials: performing as women in a saloon, fighting in the Indian and Civil Wars, escaping random attacks in Postbellum South and avoiding being caught as gay lovers. Their story is both simple and strikingly choreographed. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4643009/days-without-end-review/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014311140X/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=014311140X&linkId=b33627c9446afb1c195f76191e430c0b) ## 8.[_The Ninth Hour_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374280142/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374280142&linkId=c0a7bbe9470ecbb3aa0d3a4459313e8d)_,_ Alice McDermott  Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux The Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor meet Annie at her lowest point: she’s pregnant, and her husband has just committed suicide. With help from the nuns, Annie and her daughter are spared from destitution—but the intervention has ramifications that echo through generations. McDermott offers up a version of sisterhood that’s both historical and relevant. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4951196/alice-mcdermott-the-ninth-hour/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374280142/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374280142&linkId=c0a7bbe9470ecbb3aa0d3a4459313e8d) ## 7.[_The Changeling_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995945/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812995945&linkId=797a746159013416b11c63779afbaf3b)_,_ Victor LaValle  Spiegel & Grau Spiegel & Grau The myth of the bad mom gets the horror-story treatment in this novel, which takes place deep in the boroughs of New York City. Apollo Kagwa and his wife Emma Valentine are thrilled to welcome their first child, but soon after his birth, Emma feels a strange distance from her son—is this the boy she birthed, or some sinister imposter? The story cleverly interrogates parenting norms, racial prejudice and technological quandaries. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4828090/something-twisted-this-way-comes/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995945/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812995945&linkId=797a746159013416b11c63779afbaf3b) ## [_Exit_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735212171/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0735212171&linkId=683038fcca3cc0e86aa7e1d7b281aca9)[ _West_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735212171/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0735212171&linkId=683038fcca3cc0e86aa7e1d7b281aca9)_,_ Mohsin Hamid  Riverhead Riverhead Hamid tells the story of a couple whose love story begins just as war breaks out in their city, which is unnamed but resembles Lahore. The only path to safety is through a series of enchanted doors that lead them, and a surge of other refugees from around the world, to western cities where they face new threats from the residents who’d prefer these migrants went back to where they came from. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4696444/mohsin-hamid-literature-refugees/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735212171/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0735212171&linkId=683038fcca3cc0e86aa7e1d7b281aca9) ## 5\. [_Lincoln in the Bardo_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995341/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812995341&linkId=f47543d2cd8cd0ed87e2590acef77e64), George Saunders  Random House Random House In his first full novel, Saunders has gained an even wider audience, [winning the 2017 Man Booker Prize](http://time.com/4986699/george-saunders-man-booker-prize-lincoln-in-the-bardo/) for this historical ghost story about Abraham Lincoln. The night after his young son is buried, as the Civil War rages, the President visits the cemetery for a final farewell, only to be observed by a ragtag cast of souls who can’t bring themselves to leave their earthly remains behind. [_Read TIME’s conversation with Saunders_](http://time.com/4672999/george-saunders-debut-novel/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995341/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812995341&linkId=f47543d2cd8cd0ed87e2590acef77e64) ## 4\. [_Manhattan Beach_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476716730/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1476716730&linkId=75068cb18bbf2ca8edd7bc7120aaadb5), Jennifer Egan  Scribner Scribner The Pulitzer Prize winner’s new novel, seven years after [_A Visit From the Good Squad,_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307477479/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307477479&linkId=542732a5ae54d025fec67774de066173) marks a move away from the experimental—this is a straight historical novel, set mainly during World War II. The book’s heroine, Anna Kerrigan, is a character perfectly calibrated for Hollywood, with verve, vulnerability, and a tough-as-nails glamour that transitions from her job as the first female diver to work on war ships to her nights in gangster-filled night clubs. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4970290/jennifer-egan-manhattan-beach/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476716730/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1476716730&linkId=75068cb18bbf2ca8edd7bc7120aaadb5) ## 3\. [_Transit_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374278628/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374278628&linkId=313ef8bd9b28b8d526e1b215601c3eb7), Rachel Cusk  Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux Cusk’s second novel in a planned trilogy goes minimal on plot, maximal on observation. The plot structure in the book is the renovation of the narrator’s London flat, and the spirit of transformation is mirrored in her conversations: With her contractors, her friends, her old flame. Through elegant meditations on contemporary life, Cusk’s depiction of her narrator is not so much portrait as a photo negative—mysterious, poetic and in contrast to her world. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4623399/rachel-cusk-transit-review/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374278628/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374278628&linkId=313ef8bd9b28b8d526e1b215601c3eb7) ## 2\. [_White Tears_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451493699/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0451493699&linkId=639c1d8956b869fe28cc287d302a1d8d), Hari Kunzru  Knopf Publishing Group Knopf Publishing Group The British novelist skewers American culture in this treatise on whiteness and cultural appropriation. Two young white men breaking into the music industry find success when they record random noises in a New York City park and discover the voice of a man who wasn’t there. They pass the recording off as a rediscovered blues song—only to learn their lie may be accidentally based in reality. The hunt for the truth takes them on an unnerving journey through the past. [_Read the TIME review_](http://time.com/4703313/white-tears-hari-kunzru-review/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451493699/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0451493699&linkId=639c1d8956b869fe28cc287d302a1d8d) ## 1\. [_Sing, Unburied, Sing_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501126067/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1501126067&linkId=497b2b5eaba9aa3383fbc725e54563ef), Jesmyn Ward  Scribner Scribner Ward’s third book set in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, based on her hometown of DeLisle, Miss., conjures the same raw emotion of her previous works, like the Hurricane Katrina novel [_Salvage the Bones_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608196267/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1608196267&linkId=75356659736589e3164f543b1792df50)[.](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608196267/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1608196267&linkId=75356659736589e3164f543b1792df50) But this time, a sense of magical realism deepens the ghostly sense of the past reaching out to touch—or even strangle—the present. Ward’s novel is a true triple threat, expert in prose, human observation and social commentary. [_Read TIME’s profile of Ward_](http://time.com/4913697/jesmyn-ward-heir-to-faulkner-author-profile/) [**_Buy it on Amazon_**](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501126067/ref=as%5Fli%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=timebestnovels2017-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1501126067&linkId=497b2b5eaba9aa3383fbc725e54563ef) [(_Read TIME’s affiliate link policy_.)](http://time.com/4605406/time-affiliate-link-policy/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/"},"headline":"The Top 10 Novels of 2017","datePublished":"2017-11-21T12:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:20.332Z","description":"From \"Sing, Unburied, Sing\" to \"Lincoln in the Bardo\"","url":"https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/","keywords":["Books","top-10-2017"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78940b0811e67fed/6988e64acf40a8c39bc4a407/best-fiction-book.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78940b0811e67fed/6988e64acf40a8c39bc4a407/best-fiction-book.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Best-Books-Fiction-top-10-2017","caption":"","creditText":"Random House; Knopf Publishing Group; Scribner; Scribner; Riverhead' Photo Illustration by Allison Schaller","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5028161/top-10-novels-2017/","name":"The Top 10 Novels of 2017"}}]}] ```