At Titlepage, we’re thrilled to be featuring authors on each episode whose works have caused us to sit up and take notice. But there are always other writers out there who we feel deserve attention. So every couple of weeks, Dan and I are going to recommend additional books on the site. You can see their covers on the right-hand side of the home page, and we’ll tell you a bit more about them here on the blog. My first pick, recently published in paperback, is The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu.

The title of Mengestu’s first novel is a line borrowed from Dante, and removed from its original context it may scare potential readers into thinking this another sentimental disguised-memoir by a young writer. Fear not. Mengestu has produced a remarkably assured and worldly debut about Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian who settles in Washington, DC. There, he runs a small shop, discusses African politics with two fellow émigrés, and develops a deep friendship with Judith, a white academic, and Naomi, her biracial daughter. Judith’s purchase and renovation of a local brownstone stands in for the larger changes sweeping the neighborhood. As someone who has lived in Brooklyn for the past eight years, where gentrification continues unabated, it was fascinating to read about the large disruptions and more subtle changes that the process leaves in its wake. The novel manages to wear its weighty themes lightly, with grace. Ideas that could have been too broad and heavy-handed are firmly rooted in the personal lives of characters, where they remain provocative and heartbreaking.