Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Committed is featured on this anticipated books list by Elle.
As vaccine rollouts lent a glimmer of light to the end of the long, dark tunnel we called 2020, I realized just how much hope I’d stored up in the promise of 2021. But I’ve learned—in my many, many hours on the couch during this pandemic—that no matter what celebrations or challenges lie ahead, I’m going to need a story. When lockdown forced me into 24-hour days in my shoebox apartment, I had books like Chelsea Bieker’s Godshot and Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness to lure me away from work and Twitter and general existential despair, into a world with, well…a little more fresh air. Hopefully, 2021 won’t have nearly as much need for escapism and downtime, but when boredom or curiosity or nostalgia or hope strike—even in a so-called “normal” reality—books become just as necessary as they were in quarantine.
And 2021 promises not to disappoint. If the pandemic has developed your appetite for science fiction, biography, or old-fashioned dystopia, you’ll find just as many delights here as fans of romance, memoir, and literary fiction will. These are the most exciting new releases headed our way. Happy pre-ordering!
The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Long-awaited and already acclaimed, The Committed marks the return of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s nameless protagonist from his award-winning 2016 novel The Sympathizer. In this thriller-cum-cultural critique, the Sympathizer roams Paris as a refugee and drug dealer, embedding himself in the French underworld of the 1980s. This successor is worthy of the praise of the original novel: hilarious and smart while challenging the genre to be far more ambitious.
