John Powers

Rachel Kushner's new novel centers on a young mother serving two consecutive life sentences for murdering a man who'd been stalking her. Critic John Powers calls The Mars Room "searingly intelligent."

Near the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a big black monolith appears in an African desert, leaving a group of prehistoric ape-men standing there baffled. And that was pretty much the reaction that greeted the film itself when it premiered 50 years ago this week.

Hollinghurst's new domestic epic leapfrogs across seven decades to examine how the laws of social propriety shape the destinies of a father and son. Critic John Powers says the novel is fascinating.