10. I Hear Your Voice by Young Ha-Kim: This crazed, energetic look at youth on the fringes of modern South Korea has qualities that echo talents as various as Auster, Ryu Murakami and Bret Easton Ellis. It can be gross, heartbreaking, but wholly unforgettable, and easily found its way onto my top ten lost.
9. King Zeno by Nathanial Rich: The first book after I read after meeting my goal (and the first new book of 2018 I read) is a brilliant, alternate history period peace that tackles police violence, racism and the birth of the modern world with intrigue and ambition. Like the music at its heart, it whips you into a frenzied state and never lets you go until it wants to.
8. A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers: After being blown away by The Yellow Birds, I did not think Kevin Powers would publish his second novel so soon: that tiny book felt like a summation. I was wrong and I am glad, because his sophomore effort, while covering very different ground is no less enthralling or affecting. It is a complex yet inviting tale of the long claws of our brutal history.
7. Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine by Kevin Wilson: The best short story collection of the year and one of 2018’s biggest surprises. What Wilson lacks in the long form he makes up for in fragments, with many in this collection, like the innovative “Wildfire Johnny” and the quietly devastating title story being mini masterpieces of what is quickly becoming my favorite storytelling art form
6. The Labyrinth of Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon: This massive 800 page book was 2018’s purest delight: an enveloping, exciting and sometimes scary story that kept me on my toes to its last page. It’s a rollicking page turner, but also a heartfelt love letter to reading, love and the power of the human mind.
5. McTeague by Frank Norris: One of my promises I made to myself once I reached my goal earlier this year was to read more books published by authors born pre-1900, and of the two I read, this one stuck with me the most. For a book 120 years old it feels rather fresh and immediate and no less disturbing than it was when it was first published, with reprehensible characters, an intriguing plot line and a famously downbeat ending
4. Encircling 2: Origins by Carl Frode Tiller: With this second installment of a not yet translated trilogy, Tiller wrote what is easily my favorite international book series. Like the first one, the story focuses on the unseen David as three more people enter the picture to give their opinion of David, whether it is true or not. Interesting and thought-provoking with a keen twist at the very end, I am eagerly awaiting the third and final book.
3. There There by Tommy Orange: A debut novel that not only announces a stunning new literary voice but a book that attempts to rewrite our preconceived notions about a certain type of writing. Orange’s novel offers a new kind of Native American experience through his use of multiple narrators: one informed by folklore and marginalization and in a tug of war between tradition and modernity, climaxing powerfully ambiguous climax.
2. Throat Sprockets by Tim Lucas: One of the strangest books I have read is also one of the most pure horror stories I’ve encountered. Anybody with a strange obsession that unwilling separates themselves from acceptable society, whether that is pop culture or something much more private will find their reflection in this strangely hypnotic and undeniably erotic tale of when said obsession comes to light.
1. Some Hell by Patrick Nathan: The most self-assured debut of 2018. We have had a handful of gay-themed books come out in the past few years, but none, I think, possess this book’s immense power to disturb and move on the same level as Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin. With weighty yet savory prose, a few disquieting scenes and an impending sense of doom made painfully real in the book’s perfect ending, this was easily my favorite time reading in 2018.
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