Magnificence – A Novel - Softcover

Millet, Lydia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393346854 ISBN 13: 9780393346855

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013

Synopsis

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet is "one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation" (Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times). Salon praised her for writing that is "always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself." The Village Voice added, "If Kurt Vonnegut were still alive, he would be extremely jealous." This stunning new novel presents Susan Lindley, a woman adrift after her husband's death and the dissolution of her family. Embarking on a new phase in her life after inheriting her uncle's sprawling mansion and its vast collection of taxidermy, Susan decides to restore the neglected, moth-eaten animal mounts, tending to "the fur and feathers, the beaks, the bones and shimmering tails." Meanwhile an equally derelict human menagerie--including an unfaithful husband and a chorus of eccentric old women--joins her in residence. In a setting both wondrous and absurd, Susan defends her legacy from freeloading relatives and explores the mansion's unknown spaces. Funny and heartbreaking, Magnificence explores evolution and extinction, children and parenthood, loss and revelation. The result is the rapturous final act to the critically acclaimed cycle of novels that began with How the Dead Dream.

About this title

Review:

Millet's prose, which is both sensitive and strange... creates a thick atmosphere that immediately pulls the reader deep into this saga of love, death, sex, and taxidermy.

Millet is simply an incredible writer. Her prose displays the exceedingly rare combination of philosophical introspection with poetic grace and flourish.--Nicholas Mancusi

...[W]arm, moving, funny, earnest, hopeful, honest, and engaged in a way at odds with current literary fashion...Millet's lush prose has you in her thrall from the start.--Jenny Hendrix

[A] novel of ideas or philosophy, disguised as a portrait of one woman's midlife upheaval.--Laura Miller

Starred review. [An] elegant meditation on death and what it means to be alone, even you're not... A dazzling prose stylist, Millet elevates her story[, ] ...exploring grief and love as though they were animals to be stuffed, burrowing in deep and scooping out the innermost layers.

... draws a detailed map of the healing process of an adulterous wife who suddenly finds herself a widow.... The deeply honest, beautiful meditations on love, grief and guilt give way to a curlicued comic-romantic mystery complete with a secret basement and assorted eccentrics.

Starred review. [A] refreshingly buoyant and unsentimental tale...Millet's spare but powerful prose...calls to mind the work of J. M. Coetzee.--Jeff Ayres

About the Author:

Lydia Millet is the PEN Award-winning author of eleven works of literary fiction, including Sweet Lamb of Heaven and Magnificence, which have been New York Times Notable Books and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists. She lives in Arizona.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0393346854
• ISBN 13: 9780393346855
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272