The Books Briefing: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

In his 1967 classic , the scholar Frank Kermode argued that literature helps humans make sense of a chaotic reality—a message that might feel even more urgent in a world threatened by climate change and political division. Happy endings, when they come, can offer a sense of peace and redemption, as exemplified in John Cheever’s short story “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill.” Other endings are more fraught: Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book about an unsolved murder in Northern