10 books you should read in October, including David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream and William Shatner’s Boldly Go

It’s the day of the annual Ghost Festival in central Taiwan’s rural Yongjing, when spirits return home from the land of the dead. Very much alive but also returning to Yongjing is Keith, who long ago fled his parents’ rigid, traditional expectations by moving to Europe, though he has spent the last decade in German prison for killing his partner. Newly freed, he is nevertheless a captive of his past. A harsh, loveless upbringing haunts him and his siblings; of seven kids, six were unwanted: the first five because they were girls, the youngest, Keith, because he was gay. Keith’s return is the structural backbone, but author Kevin Chen gives voice to the whole family, living members as well as dead, dropping hints at surprising skeletons in the closet as he slowly, mesmerizingly reveals the family’s secrets, as well as the agonizing circumstances of Keith’s crime.