Discussed in this essay:

Go, Went, Gone, by Jenny Erpenbeck. Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky. New Directions. 320 pages. $16.95.

Temporary People, by Deepak Unnikrishnan. Restless Books. 272 pages. $17.99.

Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid. Riverhead Books. 240 pages. $26.

Tell Me How It Ends, by Valeria Luiselli. Coffee House Press. 128 pages. $12.95.

T he so-called social novel — set in the present and meant to dramatize, with an edge of advocacy, a real-life economic or racial or political crisis — may be ripe for a comeback; but if so, it will have to be on changed terms.…