Ten top books about the unknowable

Peter Ho Davies’s latest book is A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself. His previous novel, The Fortunes, a New York Times Notable Book, won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and the Chautauqua Prize, and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His first novel, The Welsh Girl, a London Times Best Seller, was long-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also published two short story collections, The Ugliest House in the World (winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize, and the Oregon Book Award) and Equal Love (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a New York Times Notable Book).

At the Guardian, Davies tagged ten "books that each in their various ways face the unknown, less to dispel mystery than to accept it," including:

Evening’s Empire by Zachary Lazar

True crime, like detective fiction, often promises to dispel mystery, but can sometimes only reveal its depths. Lazar’s book is a pensive, mournful investigation into his own father’s murder at the hands of the mob when the author was a child, complete with what he describes as “conjurings” – imagined scenes that fill the gaps the facts leave behind, while simultaneously reminding us of their absence.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Evening's Empire.

--Marshal Zeringue