William Morrow: 326 pages, $28
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Measured by any yardstick, Ruth Tuttle and her husband, Xavier Shaw, are living the dream of Black uplift. “The Kindest Lie,” Nancy Johnson’s debut novel, opens on election night, 2008. Ruth, a 29-year-old Yale engineering grad working for a consumer packaged-goods company, and Xavier, 32, a PepsiCo marketing vice president, are hosting a watch party at their new townhome in the gentrified Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Their guests are a cross-section of Chicago’s Black community, from an elderly postal worker to a lesbian couple Ruth met through a local Yale alumni group.