Briefly Noted:“Godwin,” “Fire Exit,” “Private Revolutions,” and “Thom Gunn” (The New Yorker)

This striking début novel of cultural inheritance and painful family bonds follows a man living across the river from Maine’s Penobscot reservation, where he was raised by his white mother and Native stepfather, and where he lived until he was effectively evicted by a law that tied residency to official tribal status.