The Thread

The Thread from MPR News

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'Black Sunday' will destroy you — let it
Tola Rotimi Abraham's wrenching novel follows a four young children in Lagos, Nigeria, whose comfortable life is blown apart when their mother loses her job, and their father abandons them.
Love has a ghost of a chance in 'The Regrets'
Amy Bonaffons deftly avoids the trap of saccharine sweetness in her new novel about a ghost serving out a 90-day sentence on Earth — and the woman he falls in love with.
The stories in 'Verge' are beautiful, but don't quite satisfy
Lidia Yuknavitch's new story collection is weighed down by strangely predictable structures and obvious metaphors — but in places it's rivetingly insightful, and one story towers above the rest.
'The Mercies' is a spark of light on a bleak shore
Kiran Millwood Hargrave's new novel takes place in a 17th century Norwegian fishing village devastated by a storm that swallows husbands, brothers and fathers, leaving the women to survive alone.
New coronavirus 'won't be the last' outbreak to move from animal to human
Science writer David Quammen says the new coronavirus is the latest example of the way pathogens are migrating from animals to humans with increasing frequency — and sometimes deadly consequences.
Multiple universes fill the pages of 'The Lost Book of Adana Moreau'
Michael Zapata's debut novel is a straightforward literary mystery on the surface — but his simple tale of a lost sci-fi manuscript goes deep on themes of family, displacement and mythology.
'The Resisters' could use a little more resistance
Gish Jen's new novel takes place in a dystopian future country called AutoAmerica, where the swamp-dwelling underclass — called "Surplus" — are set against the fair-skinned, land-dwelling "Netted."
A widow, not a wife: 'Smacked' explores an ex-husband's secret addiction
Eilene Zimmerman didn't learn of her ex-husband's addiction to cocaine and opioids until after his death. "This had happened in front of us, and we hadn't recognized it," she says.
In Ben Passmore's latest, 'Sports Is Hell' and the world is on fire
Passmore's timely new graphic novel is set in an unnamed city whose football team has just won the Super Bowl, setting off fiery riots. It's a biting satire of political action, race and capitalism.