Fiction: THE BEST OF 1983: Books

The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth. The conclusion of the Nathan Zuckerman trilogy finds Roth’s comic writer-hero disillusioned with fiction and headed for medical school and more trouble.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez. The 1982 Nobel laureate mixes imagination and fact into a suspenseful novella of honor and revenge in a Colombian town.

Ironweed by William Kennedy. In the third novel set in his native Albany, the author traces a bum’s progress through the late Depression and his old upstate New York haunts.

Pitch Dark by Renata Adler. A sophisticated narrator, nearly indistinguishable from the author, uses anecdote and bits of intriguing conversation to reflect on her mobile and solitary life.

Shiloh and Other Stories by Bobbie Ann Mason. Times are changing in western Kentucky, the setting for these tales of restless wives, footloose truckers and feisty senior citizens.

NONFICTION

Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. After an unhappy marriage, a wanderer takes to the U.S. back roads to examine his country and his American Indian roots.

The Last Lion by William Manchester. One award-winning biographer’s highly charged, worshipful narrative of Winston Spencer Churchill’s spectacular rise as soldier, author and politician.

Modern Times by Paul Johnson. The crusty former editor of the New Statesman blames Einstein, Marx and no-fault liberalism for the evils of the “me” century.

Stieglitz by Sue Davidson Lowe. The photographer’s grandniece casts an affectionate, scholarly look back at “Uncle Al,” the cantankerous genius who transformed American photography from reproduction to art.

White Mischief by James Fox. As the sun sets luridly on the British Empire, circa 1940, Kenya colonials go to pieces in a scandalous, riveting tale of murder and retribution.