Trip, by Amie Barrodale (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The title of this brilliantly strange, funny, and moving novel refers to many things, among them a journey across the Atlantic, the quasi-psychedelic quality of dying, and a boy by that name. At the novel’s outset, Trip’s mother travels to Nepal to attend a conference “for people who study death.” While there, she dies in a freak accident; at the same time, Trip, who has autism, runs away, ending up on a road trip with a recovering addict. As the mother lingers in spirit form, trying to communicate with the living in order to save Trip from calamity—by possessing the body of another conference-goer, for instance—she faces the prospect of losing the attachments that defined her. “You’ll forget everything,” she’s told, after lovingly relating a list of details about her son.

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