Description
Book SynopsisThe acclaimed author of The Borrower returns with a dazzlingly original, mordantly witty novel about the secrets of an old-money family and their turn-of-the-century estate, Laurelfield.
Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents' wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there's Violet Devohr, Zee's great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and whose massive oil portrait still hangs in the dining room.
Violet's portrait was known to terrify the artists who resided at the house from the 1920s to the 1950s, when it served as the Laurelfield Arts Colony and this is exactly the period Zee's husband, Doug, is interested in. An out-of-work academic whose only hope of a fut
Trade Review
Makkai’s second novel defies genre – part literary mystery, part comedy of manners, part wickedly funny satire. Whichever way you look at it, it’s remarkable. * Daily Mail *
Rebecca Makkai is a writer to watch, as sneakily ambitious as she is unpretentious. -- Richard Russo
Makkai humorously turns the conventional family saga on its head, in a clever exploration of metamorphosis and secrecy. * Huffington Post *
Makkai has written a novel that reads almost like early Muriel Spark – clever, competent, and concealing an unsettling and skewed reality ... The hand that keeps giving the kaleidoscope another turn, controlling just how the pieces land, isn't fate, of course. It's the artist, Makkai is one. * Chicago Tribune *
A big-hearted gothic novel, an intergenerational mystery, a story of heartbreak and a romance, all crammed into one grand Midwestern estate ... A juicy and moving story of art and love and the luck it takes for either to last. * Los Angeles Times *
