At 1,000 pages and composed mostly of a single run-on sentence, Ducks, Newburyport immediately sounds intimidating. But Lucy Ellmann’s strangely addicting stream of consciousness narrative introduces the world to the inner-workings of an Ohio mother’s mind so swiftly that any trepidation soon gives way to fun. The narrator’s observations are obsessive, her thoughts are scattered and she’s constantly wondering how and why life looks like it does in Donald Trump’s America. Though her worries range greatly—she gets stuck on fake news, hung up on something her son said the other day, thinks of her dead mother too often—the narrator’s voice is compulsive and completely readable.
Buy now: Ducks, Newburyport