First published 2009
An established author sits in her Manhattan home, surrounded by decades of published work and unpublished memories. She has reached that stage of life where the past demands accounting. Her thoughts move between the people who shaped her and the fictional characters she created, weighing what each relationship cost and gave back. Three historical figures emerge as touchstones in her reflections, their lives offering counterpoint to her own choices. She examines her family connections with the same critical eye she once turned on her manuscripts, finding patterns she missed while living through them. The writer faces questions that success cannot answer. What happens to the characters when their stories end? What remains of a life spent translating experience into fiction? Her career brought recognition, including major literary awards, but now she must reckon with the spaces between achievement and fulfillment.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, biographical-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Manhattan
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
256 pages · Hardcover · Viking Adult