David Samuel Hudson's 3 favorite reads in 2024

The Topeka School is autofiction, which means that it's autobiographical but with fictional elements weaved into the narrative. The story is mostly about Adam Gordon, a high school debate champion, as he navigates love, friendships, and his family dynamic as it gets more complicated and agonising.

I loved the book because the writing is beautifully poetic in how it unravels who the characters are. Speaking of the characters, they're very searingly real and convincing. The Topeka School doesn't require some largeness of plot to convey these characters' lives.

Each episode within the narrative feels very close to home, very intimate, you could put your hand it in like a bath and find it warm. There's heart here, a political message that is inevitable and powerful, and writing that is just enjoyable to read and delight in.

So Long, See You Tomorrow is another autofiction, recounting the life of its writer back when he befriended a young classmate when he was a schoolboy. Tragedy ensues and the writer never encounters the classmate again despite sharing a meaningful moment of connection when they were young. This meaningful moment is so memorable to the writer (and audience) that it transforms into the book's thematic understanding of connection.

This book is beautifully human. Again, it's not largeness of plot that brings out the life of these characters. The way they connect and speak about one another, the way they react to one another is so incredibly vivid. I got to know these people, I fell in love with these people. What's especially interesting about this novel is that it knows its own conceit very well: it is using fiction to supplant a faulty memory or to make sense of a strange situation. But that just makes William Maxwell's autofictional experiment even more meaningful and special. He's using fiction to try to bridge the gap between two people who shared a connection that was severed far too early. And he does it stunningly. Isn't that beautiful?

It's the cover. It invariably is the cover.

The Bird Girl statue was so haunting to me the first time I saw it. Bordered with a police-tape yellow and with THAT title, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", I had no choice but to purchase this book.

At first, the book (a true crime book but it's more than that) feels like a travelogue concerning Savannah. By the first 20 pages, I wanted to visit the place, to see its sea, experience its swamp, luxuriate in the beautiful and ornate squares (it has 22 in total), explore its many mysteries, and gaze at the ranch houses, classical revival houses, art deco houses, and federal colonial villas.

It's clear that its writer, John Berendt, became enamoured with the place. He abandoned New York for a while to explore the city in Georgia and he encountered so many of its residents that, at first glance, seemed like the products of fiction. They're interesting, vivid, each has a particular voice and routine. No imagination could conjure so many distinct and colourful people. By the time the murder - the focal point of the book - takes place, you almost feel like the writer has lulled you into a sense of euphoria only to snatch it away.

But even during the trial (or many, I should say), the sense of Savannah as a glorious place never left me. It felt like a painting I wanted on my study wall. No other book, in my mind, has captured a sense of place so well.