Fog & Car

In his mesmerizing 2008 debut, which has long been out of print, novelist Lim (Dear Cyborg; Search History) makes an unforgettable, transformative journey into the obscure byways of the self. Alternating distinctly voiced chapters draw readers into the post-divorce lives of Car, who is busily distracted with building her new life in a new city, and Fog, who is back in his childhood home and yielding to reminiscent inertia, adrift in a moody, liminal “slowtime.” Portrayed with keen and compassionate verisimilitude, these sympathetic characters’ deviating courses seem likely to revert to some familiar mean. But when an old friend named Frank Exit reenters their lives, the path grows strange and vertiginous. The startling effect is a little like looking down to find the cat one has been absentmindedly stroking is, in fact, a tiger. Lim’s feat is to guide readers through this surreal, transgressive territory with humane intelligence that feels expansive rather than manipulative.