In the acknowledgements of her new novel, “The Wilderness,” author Angela Flournoy says, “a decade is a long time to work on a book, or no time at all, depending on whom you ask.” Learning this in the immediate aftermath of reading the novel itself, if you ask me, it’s the exact right amount of time, at least for this writer and this book.

“The Wilderness” braids together the stories of four friends — Desiree, Nakia, Monique and January — from 2008 to 2027 as the women move from their early 20s into middle age, a personal era that Flournoy calls “the wilderness.”

Like Flournoy’s equally compelling debut, “The Turner House,” which covers several decades as it explores a family of 13 children living in the titular home in 20th-century Detroit, “The Wilderness” is energized by its multipli

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