Booklist I Smile Back Amy Koppelman (Two Dollar Radio, $15)

Laney, beautiful, married with two children and a seemingly fine suburban life, feels only impending doom shadowing her and everyone else’s life. She finishes many sentences in her mind with “and then you die,” and comes to know that “nothing bad needs to happen for her to feel sad.” So she misbehaves: drinks too much, uses drugs, and sleeps around. Her husband, ever patient, copes and sends her to rehab, but nothing connects or fills the hole left by her father’s abandonment long ago. She always expects failure and loss. Koppelman has visited this area before with a more sympathetic character in A Mouthful of Air (2003). Koppleman’s writing is expressive and nuanced, so the reader recognizes Laney’s pain, but doesn’t feel it. And perhaps that is the point. Her separation from everyone, even the reader, is her strongest characteristic. Her aloneness gives her the distance she both wants and fears. Therefore this potent novel is captivating the way watching a car wreck might be. It is not easy or comfortable or for the faint of heart.

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