Thomas Willing, writes Vague, author of The Paradox of Debt (2023), was America’s dominant merchant. Robert Morris, the better-known “financier of the Revolution,” was his employee and later his business partner. Willing was perhaps the richest man in the Colonies, widely respected but colorless, with few interests besides work. He protested British actions, which hurt business, but voted to oppose independence in 1776, although he later supported the war. Armies fight wars, but money wins them, and Vague points out that the only sources of ready money in the Colonies were rich men. Willing immediately accepted supply orders from the Congress, a risky tactic because Congress was slow in paying—when it paid at all. In this unregulated free market, profits could be spectacular, but so were risks. Willing grew richer, but others (Morris included) were ruined. Willing soon headed the nation’s first bank, which helped finance the war, yet victory left a huge debt. More than most scholars, Vague emphasizes debt as a motivation for the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the Constitution as “a triumph for the money system advocated by the conservative elite.” President Washington’s approval of treasury secretary Hamilton’s plan to pay off the entire debt at full value produced widespread outrage because almost all was held by wealthy men and speculators who had bought it at a fraction of its value, often from soldiers. Few historians praise Hamilton’s defense, and Vague states bluntly that this was a corrupt bargain that benefited the wealthy and exerted a malign influence on subsequent American history. Appointed director of the First Bank of the United States, Willing served for 15 of its 20-year existence, remaining untouched by the fraud, speculation, bubbles, and crashes that occurred while America’s GDP nearly tripled.

“I have always been intimidated by mothers,” says A., the narrator of Bruni’s strange and fascinating second novel. Of an age where she’s contemplating settling down and starting a family, she has a stable if somewhat meager life adjunct teaching a course called “Language Elective for Non-Native Speakers.” Then, during some routine medical tests, doctors discover a precancerous condition that they must treat by removing her reproductive organs. She loses her teaching gig during the long period of convalescence, and when she heals, she begins work as a caretaker for a young high-needs child. She also meets N., an immigrant with whom she dances away long nights in bars. One evening, she comes across a book on N.’s shelf: Field Notes, by Tomas Petritus, a book of testimonies by the mothers of boys who have gone missing in an unnamed country. Written in N.’s native language, the book tells the story of Mothers United, an underground network of women who channel grief over their missing children into political activism designed to raise awareness and demand answers from their government. When A. gets a grant to translate Petritus’ book, she travels to the town at its heart—“a town whose name has become synonymous in the national media with mass disappearances”—and learns that the book is not quite what it seems. In a fragmented, braided style reminiscent of Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation (2014), Bruni weaves together explorations of language, borders, and belonging, as well as of the precarious and frequently terrifying state of motherhood. The result is a deeply intelligent, prismatic look at the personal and political facets of maternal care.

Ignoring the party downstairs in her house, Natalie listens to her husband cry across the hall and feels nothing but revulsion. It turns out that James has recently spent 20,000 pounds of their savings, including an inheritance from Nat’s grandmother, that they’d intended to use for IVF. She confronts him; he claims he used the money to pay off his brother, who’d been planning to blackmail Nat because of some letters they found that seemed to suggest she’d murdered several of her exes. Thus begins Darlington’s twisted, twisty thriller. As revealed through a series of flashbacks, three of Natalie’s former boyfriends—real pieces of work, all of them—have ended up dead, seemingly the victims of accidents or self-defense. Each time, Nat suffered a blackout, so she can’t remember actually pushing anyone, or poisoning them, or stabbing them with a kitchen knife. She does remember having fits of uncontrollable rage, triggered by scenarios that echo her traumatic childhood. And James’ decision to pay away their life savings is certainly making her see red…Like many contemporary thrillers, this one plays with a nonlinear timeline as well as a few different points of view; unlike some thriller writers, while she certainly draws on tropes of the genre, Darlington manages to include some genuine surprises, weaving themes of mental illness and family trauma with a sense of mystery. At the center of it all is Natalie herself: flawed, mistreated, and distrustful, but also strong. She, and Darlington, refuse to let bad men get away with doing bad things.

Agriculture, which is overwhelmingly dominated by the meat industry, is growing so robustly that it will “wipe out all of the world’s forests and savannas” by 2050, reports Friedrich, founder and president of the nonprofit Good Food Institute. Among the disasters already occurring are the pollution of lakes, seas, and oceans due to field runoff; the devastating decline of biodiversity; increasing zoonotic diseases and global pandemics; and the uncontrolled release of climate change-causing carbon. All told, it takes nine calories of crops to make one calorie of chicken, “a staggering amount of food to produce food,” the author notes. But there is hope. Alternatives being developed include plant-based meat; cultivated meat using animal cells; and genetic engineering of meat proteins to bulk up other foods. Around 2020, a few countries, including Singapore, Israel, and Japan, began tackling this new endeavor, including its biggest challenge: making such “alternative meats” taste exactly like real meat. So far, this has not happened—and that is the only way such a paradigm-shifting market can take off. But the author, who grew up in Oklahoma—“the land of cattle and steak houses”—makes many indisputable points. Cars replaced horse buggies shortly after their invention. Cell phones replaced landline phones shortly after their invention. Furthermore, we once freaked out about “artificial ice”—“The natural ice industry branded artificial ice as impure, unnatural, and inferior”—and “artificial light” generated by Thomas Edison’s strange bulbs. But we got over it all. If the price—and the taste—is right, we may—may—get over meatless Big Macs and lab-grown Whoppers.

This cross-genre memoir combines various storytelling techniques, blending italicized dialogue and self-talk, shape poetry, and narrative prose. Duffy journals her divorce as a healing exercise, beginning at the moment of realization that separation was the best course of action for her and her husband, who was gay, and ending in a post-divorce reflection. With an understanding that every divorce story unfolds differently, the author notes that her circumstances required respect for her former partner, honoring the love and the life they shared. This frame of mind admirably guided her through the divorce. Unlike many such stories, the work confronts the grief, pain, and rage of ending a loving relationship, but positively reframes the journey into one of personal growth and a belief in the guiding powers of the universe. Three sections, entitled “exploding stars,” “deep space,” and “fusion,” remain hopeful that the chaos of divorce will eventually result in order. For example, in her poem “the tarot of the rings,” Duffy writes of “the wheel of fortune / a direction that hangs in the balance,” but later, in “the tarot of new beginnings,” she “tear[s] up” as the Sun card’s “immediate influence” confirms that she’s found “a new way to walk in the world.” Duffy’s care for her three children guides her as she teaches them affirmations and tries to channel negative emotions into positive pursuits: “Life went on. And in all of life’s tartness, I made lemon squares,” Duffy says. Instead of wallowing in heartache, this revealing memoir openly discusses common experiences of “divorce culture” with wisdom and insight, inviting others to listen to their inner voices and to share their own stories. Overall, Duffy’s honesty and vulnerability resonate with emotional intensity as she tells of attending to daily life while trying to make sense of her experiences, which remain relatable throughout.