Great house: a novel - Krauss, Nicole
Summary: The lives of four strangers are thrown into chaos over an enormous, stolen desk, including an antique dealer in Jerusalem, a man in London, and an American novelist who inherited it from a poet and victim of Pinochet's secret police.
Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* Krauss, in her follow-up to the best-selling History of Love (2005), tells her story entirely through the voices of her characters. All of the elements of literary fiction are conveyed through the monologues of five people: a writer from New York, an angry Jewish father from Jerusalem, an American woman studying in Oxford, the baffled husband of a Holocaust refugee, and an éminence grise who wraps things up—but not too tightly. Readers follow the trail, set forth in straightforward narrative and flashbacks, of an immense desk, which casts its shadow (sometimes literally) over the lives of all five characters. The plot is intricate and rewards careful reading. Krauss' masterful rendition of character is breathtaking, compelling, and reminiscent of ZZ Packer at her very best. In addition, the points of view of the various narrators, taken as a whole, present a broad picture of plot and motivation. Thematically strong, Great House examines the daily survival of Jews and demonstrates the destructiveness of lies and secrets within families. This tour de force of fiction writing will deeply satisfy fans of the author's first two books and bring her legions more." Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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