Everything changes for 12-year-old Samantha McGinty in the summer of 1969. Her father, Brick, stops fussing over his Chevy each weekend, no longer spritzing the windows with water and vinegar and wiping them clean with old pages of the Erietown Times.

In an oft-told story from Japanese folklore, an enchanted bird marries a man. There are many variations of the tale, but the one CJ Hauser relates in the title essay of her new collection, “The Crane Wife,” involves a creature who plucks her feathers out each night to preserve her marriage, to trick her husband into believing she is human.

Elizabeth Harris’s debut novel is a political book charming enough to appeal to readers burned out by politics.