The Oyster Diaries

Lemann takes readers back to the world of her 1985 cult classic Lives of the Saints with an easygoing and lovely, if inconsistent novel of late middle-age. Delery Anhalt, a native New Orleanian, lives now in Washington, D.C., with her family, but is regularly drawn back home. In New Orleans, she tends to her father, now marred to Delery’s close friend Amelia, and reflects on his aging as well as her own. Heartbroken after she’s blindsided by a betrayal, Delery comes to view herself as an innocent Don Quixote type, one who “embroider[s] everything into vast ideals.” While beautiful and deeply felt in their individual ways, the separate sections of Lemann’s novel don’t quite add up to a whole—the final section, set on an African safari with Delery’s children and husband, feels tacked on to a more cohesive work centered on New Orleans, including Delery’s present-day volunteer work there as a court-watcher in the backlogged criminal justice system. Despite the scattered structure, the novel offers an indelible ode to the struggling but vital city (“Things were different since Katrina. The scrappy quality. The gentility’s still there, but its veneer chipped. Its shabbiness increased”). It’s well worth taking the plunge. Agent: Kristi Murray, Wylie Agency. (Apr.)