The Tragedy Of Eva Mott

Literary legend David Adams Richards follows the epic Miramichi Trilogy with a startling standalone novel of concentrated power. The Raskin brothers were once proud to be producers of a much sought-after material of great benefit to society—asbestos. But now their mine is under close scientific scrutiny, with reports of serious illness linked to the place. The world is changing, no doubt for the better . . . But in the shadow of the mine, the values of a whole community are transforming, in more sinister ways. The Raskins' nephew Byron, a war hero and man of wealth, urges the brothers to look for other, less toxic minerals to extract. But meanwhile his own world is unravelling in ways that are unlikely ever to be fixed. His wife Carmel, whom he vaingloriously believed he was rescuing with his marriage proposal, has become an intellectual and political poseur. She and her son Albert are contemptuous of the values of Byron and his kind, while still finding use for his wealth and property. Carmel and Albert, it seems, are heralds of a new world addicted to mimicry and empty self-promotion, to delusions and temptations. Its victims are growing in number: a college professor in town is falsely accused of sexual harassment; a young woman is slipped a hallucinogen at a party with appalling consequences for her and two boys. And what of poor, naive Eva Mott, the captivating beauty who wished to be like her talented cousin Clara? Her story and the book that bears her name will haunt you. The Tragedy of Eva Mott has all the power and brilliance—and many flashes of wry humour—of David Adams Richards at the very top of his form. It will attract controversy but its fierce authenticity cannot be denied.

Three women learn what it means to come home--and to make peace with the family, love affairs, and memories they'd once left behind--in this stunning and perceptive debut novel. River Bend, Michigan, is the kind of small town most can't imagine leaving but three women couldn't wait to escape. When each must return--Linda Williams, never sure what she wants; her mother, Paula, always too sure; and Beth DeWitt, one of River Bend's only black daughters, now a mother of two who'd planned to raise her own children anywhere else--their paths collide under Beth's father's roof. As one town struggles to contain all of their love affairs and secrets, a local scandal forces Beth to confront her own devastating past. Uniting the voices of mothers and daughters, husbands, lovers, and fathers, this unforgettable debut novel offers both a compulsively readable family story and a riveting portrait of small-town America today. With wisdom, humor, and exceptional heart, The House of Deep Water explores motherhood, trauma, love, loss, and new beginnings found in that most unlikely place: home.

“A riveting epic, keenly observed and shining with lush historical detail. You’ll never forget this journey.”--Cara Black, New York Times bestselling author of Three Hours in Paris “A sweeping tale of tumult and tragedy— intricate, absorbing, and impeccably depicted, The School of Mirrors will linger in your imagination long after you turn the last page.”--Ann Mah, bestselling author of Jacqueline in Paris A scintillating, gorgeously written historical novel about a mother and a daughter in eighteenth-century France, beginning with decadence and palace intrigue at Versailles and ending in an explosive new era of revolution. During the reign of Louis XV, impoverished but lovely teenage girls from all over France are sent to a discreet villa in the town of Versailles. Overseen by the King’s favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour, they will be trained as potential courtesans for the King. When the time is right, each girl is smuggled into the palace of Versailles, with its legendary Hall of Mirrors. There they meet a mysterious but splendidly dressed man who they’re told is merely a Polish count, a cousin of the Queen. Living an indulgent life of silk gowns, delicious meals, and soft beds, the students at this “school of mirrors” rarely ask questions, and when Louis tires of them, they are married off to minor aristocrats or allowed to retire to one of the more luxurious nunneries. Beautiful and canny Veronique arrives at the school of mirrors and quickly becomes a favorite of the King. But when she discovers her lover’s true identity, she is whisked away, sent to give birth to a daughter in secret, and then to marry a wealthy Breton merchant. There is no return to the School of Mirrors. This is also the story of the King’s daughter by Veronique—Marie-Louise. Well-provided for in a comfortable home, Marie-Louise has never known her mother, let alone her father. Capable and intelligent, she discovers a passion for healing and science, and becomes an accredited midwife, one of the few reputable careers for women like her. But eventually Veronique comes back into her daughter’s life, bringing with her the secret of Marie-Louise’s birth. But the new King—Louis XVI—is teetering on his throne and it’s a volatile time in France…and those with royal relatives must mind their step very carefully.

Two sisters, lost youth, and youthful obsessions; organized by day as the family sits shiva, Evening unfolds the paradoxes of love, ambition, siblings, and the way the past continues to inflect the present, sometimes against our will. In her thirties, Eve is summoned home by her distraught family to mourn the premature death of her sister, Tam, a return that becomes an unexpected encounter with the past. Eve bears the burden of a secret: Two weeks before Tam died, Eve and Tam argued so vehemently that they did not speak again. Her sister was famous, acclaimed for her career as a TV journalist and her devoted marriage. But Tam, too, had a secret, revealed the day after the funeral, one that inverts the story Eve has told herself since their childhood. In the aftermath, Eve is forced to revise her version of her fractured family, her sister’s accomplishments and vaunted marriage, and her own impeded ambition in work and love. Day by day as the family sits shiva, the stories unfold, illuminating the past to shape the present. Evening explores the dissonant love between sisters, the body in longing, the pride we take in sustaining our illusions, and the redemption that is possible only when they are dispelled. The paperback edition features a reading group guide for book clubs.

Winner of the 2021 High Plains Book Award in Fiction and the 2021 Montana Innovation Award In this haunting parable of the American West, a young woman faces the violent past of her remote Montana valley. As a child in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, Ruthie Fear sees an apparition: a strange, headless creature near a canyon creek. Its presence haunts her throughout her youth. Raised in a trailer by her stubborn, bowhunting father, Ruthie develops a powerful connection with the natural world but struggles to find her place in a society shaped by men. Development, gun violence, and her father’s vendettas threaten her mountain home. As she comes of age, her small community begins to fracture in the face of class tension and encroaching natural disaster, and the creature she saw long ago reappears as a portent of the valley’s final reckoning. An entirely new kind of western and the first novel from one of this generation’s most wildly imaginative writers, Ruthie Fear captures the destruction and rebirth of the modern American West with warmth, urgency, and grandeur. The Technicolor bursts of action that test Ruthie’s commitment to the valley and its people invite us to look closer at our nation’s complicated legacy of manifest destiny, mass shootings, and environmental destruction. Anchored by its unforgettable heroine, Ruthie Fear presents the rural West as a place balanced on a knife-edge, at war with itself, but still unbearably beautiful and full of love.

Aimee Bender’s stunning debut collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, proved her to be one of the freshest voices in American fiction. Now, in her first novel, she builds on that early promise. Mona Gray was ten when her father contracted a mysterious illness and she became a quitter, abandoning each of her talents just as pleasure became intense. The only thing she can’t stop doing is math: She knocks on wood, adds her steps, and multiplies people in the park against one another. When Mona begins teaching math to second-graders, she finds a ready audience. But the difficult and wonderful facts of life keep intruding. She finds herself drawn to the new science teacher, who has an unnerving way of seeing through her intricately built façade. Bender brilliantly directs her characters, giving them unexpected emotional depth and setting them in a calamitous world, both fancifully surreal and startlingly familiar. BONUS MATERIAL: This edition includes an excerpt from Aimee Bender's The Color Master.

“A gripping, ripped-from-headlines tale.” —People “Spellbinding.” —Megan Abbott, The New York Times Book Review Tracing the fifteen-year fallout of a toxic high school rumor, a riveting, astonishingly original debut novel about the power of stories—and who gets to tell them 2015. A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories. But she is haunted by the one story she can't tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep." 1999. Nick Brothers and his lacrosse teammates return for their senior year at their wealthy Maryland high school as the reigning state champions. They're on top of the world—until two of his friends drive a passed-out girl home from of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor about what happened in the backseat spreads through the town like wildfire. The boys deny the allegations, and, eventually, the town moves on. But not everyone can. Nick descends into alcoholism, and Alice builds a life in fits and starts, underestimating herself and placing her trust in the wrong people. When she finally gets the opportunity to confront the past she can't remember—but which has nevertheless shaped her life—will she take it? An inventive and breathtaking exploration of a woman finding her voice in the wake of trauma, True Story is part psychological thriller, part fever dream, and part timely comment on sexual assault, power, and the very nature of truth. Ingeniously constructed and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the final pages, it marks the debut of a singular and daring new voice in fiction.

Shortlisted for the Goldsmith's Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the James Tait Black Award. Dive in to a tale of love and loathing with the beach read of the summer. Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It’s the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart. From a Tuscan hotel for the super-rich to a Brexit-paralysed UK, Kathy spends the first summer of her forties trying to adjust to making a lifelong commitment just as Trump is tweeting the world into nuclear war. But it’s not only Kathy who’s changing. Political, social and natural landscapes are all in peril. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is hotting up. Is it really worth learning to love when the end of the world is nigh? And how do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all. Olivia Laing radically rewires the novel in a brilliant, funny and emphatically raw account of love in the apocalypse. A Goodbye to Berlin for the 21st century, Crudo charts in real time what it was like to live and love in the horrifying summer of 2017, from the perspective of a commitment-phobic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker . . .

Luna, an imaginative tabby, understands that sometimes change is necessary. When her owner, Annika, moved back to her small New England hometown six months ago along with her sixteen-year-old twins, Luna knew it was for the best. Ever since Annika's husband, Peter, died suddenly, the family has been floundering. Luna also knows something the others don't know: Peter's spirit is still with them, and Luna believes there is something he needs her help to do. Annika has been struggling to move on. It doesn't help that her son, Donovan, blames her for his father's death. When Annika's first love, Sam, arrives to plow them out during a storm, the truth begins to emerge at last. And Luna-- watchful and unwavering in her affection-- may be her family's best hope of learning how to forgive and to heal. -- adapted from back cover

DIV DIVMinot’s bestselling debut: A moving novel of familial love and endurance in the face of shattering tragedyDIV /div/divDIVMonkeys is the remarkable story of a decade in the life of the Vincents, a colorful Irish Catholic family from the Boston suburbs. On the surface, they seem happy with their vivacious mother Rosie at the helm. But underneath, the Vincents struggle to maintain the appearance of wealth and stability while dealing with the effects of their father’s alcoholism. When a sudden accident strikes, their love for one another is tested like never before./divDIV /divDIVWritten by the bestselling author of Evening, Monkeys is a powerful story of one family’s struggle to overcome life-changing tribulations and Minot’s wrenching ode to the ties that bind even the most wounded of families./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features a new illustrated biography of Susan Minot, including artwork by the author and rare documents and photos from her personal collection./div /div