100 books like The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

Most people are familiar with the movie, and I was, too, before I read the novel—which is shockingly good! Though published in 1967, the prose is modern and restrained.

Rosemary is betrayed by those she trusts, most heinously by her opportunistic husband, but she’s no passive victim; instead, she becomes ferocious. I give props to Levin for channeling the burgeoning feminist rage of the times, which he also did in his 1972 classic, The Stepford Wives. The dream/hallucination scene where Satan impregnates Rosemary and her confrontation with Guy the morning after is so well-written and horrific it made me want to stab him with a pitchfork. 

One of my favorite hair-raising tropes is the hostile doppelgänger, and this one really delivers! After sensing an intruder in the house, Molly, a young mother, encounters a menacing double who calls herself “Moll” and claims to be her from an alternate reality, one where she has no children—which prompts her to claim Molly’s.

What makes this book so tense and creepy is Molly’s unreliable POV as she wrestles with her anxiety, exhaustion, and protectiveness over her two young children. Is Moll the manifestation of a psychotic breakdown? Does Molly want to vanquish her or trade places? The prose is potent and spare, with short chapters alternating between past and present action, twisting the suspense all the way to its ambiguous—but for me, satisfying—conclusion. 

This book is not for the faint of heart, but I loved all its disturbing, cyclical layers. Wang’s debut is a darkly mythical tale about inherited madness and sexual obsession.

Spanning decades, from the forties to the seventies, it centers around the Nowaks: David, the schizophrenic heir to a piano maker’s fortune; Jia-Hui (later Daisy), his wife from Taiwan; their son William; and Gillian, David’s daughter from an affair with his former sweetheart, who gives up their child to him and Daisy.

Its complex themes of mental illness, misogyny, and incest are difficult and possibly unpalatable for some. But for me, no subject is taboo if I can glean the humanity within it, and Wang’s prose is so strong and suffused with compassion it kept pulling me in. 

How much do I love this hilarious, terrifying, completely bonkers carny show of a novel? Written and illustrated by Barry, a cartoonist, it opens with a suicide note by Roberta, a misfit teen with a busted-up face who’s left behind a rageful diaristic manifesto describing child abuse, theft, revenge, murder, and a cast of characters out of a circus nightmare.

I got whiplash, veering from stomach-cramping laughter to anxious dread, heartbreak, and complete wonder at the strange, freakish beauty of her prose, like finding chunks of gold in the trash. When I finished, I thought, WTF did I just read, and HOW TF did she do it? I really don’t know. But every few years, I re-read it to try and find out.

This charming parallel universe story is like two contemporary realistic novels in one. Fifteen-year-old Summer Everette makes a choice at the beginning of the book (no spoilers, here!) that will either take her to France or keep her in upstate New York for the summer. So why not see what would happen in both worlds?

This book has all the elements I love. A relatable protagonist, two adorable love interests, and tons of heart. Add the French countryside element and voila! Parfait!

In 2009, after years of writing Easy Rawlins novels set in a past Los Angeles, Walter Mosley began a new series set in contemporary New York. African-American Leonid McGill is a hard PI, with a complex seamy past who aspires to become a better person, despite the pressures of being a husband and family man caught in a near-loveless marriage. The New York in which McGill lives and struggles is the upscale but still gritty descendant of earlier versions of the city in the Mike Hammer novels of Mickey Spillane and the Matthew Scudder novels of Buffalo-born Lawrence Block. It is a land of wealth and culture but danger and deceit.

For years Henry Mitchell wrote for The Washington Post about the agony and the ecstasy of gardening and, consequently, everything else. This classic is laced with pith, wit, gems, and instruction throughout. No one does it better or funnier. The easiest path is to quote the man himself: “Shasta daisies are far more agreeable and lovely than one thinks they are going to be.”

Intoxicated by My Illness is short but well worth reading. I loved his style. A brilliant and witty author and book critic, Broyard discovered a 'brand new infatuation' for life in his mid-40s, when he was diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer. Endlessly quotable – "Sick people need a literature of their own" and "anxiety is the cancer patient's worst enemy – like a catheter inserted into your soul." This very short and wise book often made me smile. 

Colm Toibin is one of my favorite writers. The drama in his novels is found in quiet moments with portraits of ordinary characters that we get to know and love. Nora Webster is a 44-year-old woman living in a small town in Ireland. We meet her soon after her husband dies, as she grieves amid navigating her new life with four children and little income.  

Through Toibin’s exceptional character development, we become immersed in Nora’s journey: her realization of feeling confined by the well-meaning expectations of her neighbors; her relationship with her sons as she struggles to parent them through their grief; her growing self-reflection as she awakens to her hidden strength. We cheer her as she achieves her newfound independence.

Welcome to the sweet romance of Isa, a dancer, and Alex, a baseball player, teenagers in New York with very different upbringings. Isa is a blonde, half-Cuban/half white, private school girl from a well-off family that’s falling apart behind the scenes. Alex is Dominican, attends public school, and divides his time between his divorced parents. He’s also a secret poet and leaves his poems for Isa to find on the subway train where they first met. Both have professional sports potential, but the reality is more complicated. The couple navigates challenges with their families and neighborhoods, including mental health and gangs, and you’ll be rooting for them the entire time. The author has a beautiful poem in the Rhyme and Rhythm anthology that I mentioned above.