Marcia Butler's new novel centers on a drunken, bickering couple whose lives are turned upside down after a car crash. It's a deeply weird book that succeeds because of Butler's considerable charisma.

A new book focuses on how the Adams father-son duo spent years abroad making the a case for our young country — yet both saw themselves rejected in favor of more charismatic and populist rivals.

A new book focuses on how the Adams father-son duo spent years abroad making a case for our young country — yet both saw themselves rejected in favor of more charismatic and populist rivals.

Amid disquisitions on the importance of thank-you notes and a hilariously graphic description of a mammogram, Ellis occasionally ventures into more weighty territory in her first work of nonfiction.

It's possible to seriously consider the left's preoccupation with public shaming, its increasingly repetitive vocabulary of resistance and privilege — and do it well. But that's not been done here.