The Best Historical Fiction of the 21st Century (So Far)

If Charles Dickens had written Moby Dick after watching a documentary on the Donner Party, it might have become Jamrach’s Menagerie. This adventurous novel follows an orphan, Jaffy, who becomes friends with a competitive boy named Tim as they care for exotic animals under the direction of the magnificent Jamrach. When Jamrach is hired to capture a (Komodo) dragon, Jaffy and Tim are sent on the misadventure of a lifetime on a whaling ship. Visceral and darkly delightful, this book is a contemplation of nature and humanity.

In 1970s Kabul, a wealthy boy, Amir, and his best friend, Hassan, the son of his Baba’s servant, spend their free time kite fighting. After a terrible incident, Hassan and his father move away. Years later, Amir’s guilt weighs on him as he and his Baba escape to the U.S. during the Soviet-Afghan War. When Amir returns to Afghanistan to visit an old friend, long-hidden secrets change his worldview. The Kite Runner has been adapted into film, theatre, and a graphic novel.

Eighteenth-century Swiss orphan Marie is born into servitude. Marie is only praised for her artistic ability as a wax sculptor’s apprentice. When her master marries a dreadful lady, they move into a strange home in the middle of Paris. Marie secures a place for herself at Versailles as an art tutor and fades into the background. As Paris begins to revolt against the aristocracy, Marie’s talents for wax head carving are finally appreciated.

The first in a quartet, My Brilliant Friend chronicles the intimate, complicated friendship of two women growing up in mid-20th century Italy. When adult Elena receives a call from her estranged friend’s son, saying Lila has disappeared, she begins to unravel stories from their impoverished childhood. Setting the stage for the next volumes, My Brilliant Friend highlights themes of ambition, identity, and rivalry during a time of intense social change.

Half-sisters Effia and Esi live opposite lives that affect generations of their families. As Effia lives in comfort in the Cape Coast Castle of Ghana, Esi is sold into the Gold Coast slave trade. As Esi’s children and grandchildren are raised in slavery and diaspora, Effia’s descendants live through Ghana’s centuries of war and colonization. Told over three hundred years of family history, Gyasi weaves each story into one collective narrative. Glimmering with hope amongst the horrors, this novel feels incredibly real.

Sentenced to house arrest by the Bolshevik regime, Count Alexander Rostov is stripped of his wealth and made to observe the world pass him by. Staying true to his gentlemanly ways, Rostov interacts with a revolving cast of unusual characters in his hotel dwelling. Charming and descriptive, A Gentleman in Moscow invites the reader into Rostov’s private world to understand 1920s Russia.

Taking inspiration from Dickens’s David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead is an expansive and episodic novel that begins with the single-wide trailer where Damon lives with his single mother in the Appalachian mountains. Each moment colored by poverty and the opioid crisis, Damon makes his way, observing in intense detail friendships, complicated family relationships, success and failure through adulthood.

Reimagining the underground railroad as an actual railroad beneath the earth, Whitehead takes readers on a harrowing journey through pre-Civil War America. Enslaved woman Cora is ready to make her escape on the Railroad, when she is offered a “ticket” to freedom by newly arrived Caesar. Cora and Caesar are hunted at every stop by a bounty hunter who will stop at nothing. Brutal and mesmerizing, this novel is an excellent example of relevant historical fiction.

Teenage Sunja is abandoned by the wealthy businessman who promised her the world. Instead, Sunja marries a minister on his way to Japan. As Sunja’s sons grow up in WWII Japan, they face xenophobia and classism. Sunja’s choices ripple outwards, changing her family’s path forever.