This was a year of terrific first novels, some of them written by writers so young, their wisdom teeth probably haven't had time to become impacted yet. "Swamplandia!" a debut novel by 30-year-old Karen Russell, is my absolute favorite of these dazzlers. Set in the Florida Everglades at a rundown alligator wrestling theme park, "Swamplandia!" tells the story of 13-year-old Ava Bigtree, who saves her economically struggling family from sinking down into the primordial ooze.
It's Ava's cocky, Huck Finn-size voice that carries this story forward into the realm of literary magic. Another standout debut novel, "Open City," by 30-something-er Teju Cole, is set a world apart from palm trees and swamp things. Cole's novel follows a despondent young Nigerian doctor, a resident in psychiatry, as he wanders around Manhattan thinking about the ghosts of Dutch settlers and encountering the city's newer immigrants from China and Africa.
"Open City" resurrects that most elemental of all New York plots – that is, the tale of a walker in the city.
原讀在這裏：
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143293240/year-end-fiction-wrap-up-the-10-best-novels-of-2011
