Eleven Hours

You can likely read this slim novel in less than eleven hours, but it will feel like it's happening in real time. The clock starts with the morning admission of Lore, 31 years old and alone, to a New York City maternity ward, where her nurse, Franckline, is a year younger and pregnant herself; the drama comes from the messy, inexorable imperative of birth but also from Erens's intense, compassionate attention to the two women who spend this single day together. In its own way, it's as harrowing and suspenseful as any Everest memoir.