Great House
Nicole Krauss
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.
Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?
Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.
Product Details
Price
$24.95
$23.20
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
October 05, 2010
Pages
289
Dimensions
6.4 X 1.0 X 9.3 inches | 1.25 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780393079982
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About the Author
Nicole Krauss is the author of the novels Forest Dark, Great House, The History of Love, and Man Walks Into a Room. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and The Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. She is currently the inaugural writer-in-residence at Columbia University's Mind, Brain, and Behavior Institute. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Reviews
[An] elegiac novel...achieved through exquisitely chosen sensory details that reverberate with emotional intensity. Here [Krauss] gives us her tragic vision pure. It is a high-wire performance, only the wire has been replaced by an exposed nerve, and you hold your breath, and she does not fall.--Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
[Krauss] writes of her characters' despair with striking lucidity...an eloquent dramatization of the need to find that missing piece that will give life its meaning.--Sam Sacks
[The characters'] stunningly distinct and lively voices hold us captive to their versions of their lives. Krauss, who began her career as a poet, can do just about anything with the English language.--Ann Harleman
A novel brimming with insights into the human psyche...often haunting and ultimately rewarding.--Monica Rhor
Krauss' organic scenes soar, she is stunning.--Karen R. Long
A complex, richly imagined new novel... Krauss's talent runs deep. And she cannot write a bad sentence: pound for pound, the sentences alone deliver epiphany upon epiphany.--Janet Byrne
Artlessly lovely... the pleasure of reading this book is in its details, its intimation of sincerity, its quiet wisdom.--Yevgeniya Traps
...I was captivated by the first chapter, and never disappointed thereafter as the various voices chimed in and the intricate connections began to connect. Perhaps it has a special resonance for writers (the two "All Rise" sections in particular, were utterly devastating)--but at the same time I feel sure all kinds of readers will respond to it.... The richness of invention, the beauty of the prose, the aptness of her central images (oh, the desk!), the depth of feeling: who would not be moved?--Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever
Krauss herself is a fiction pioneer, toying with fresh ways of rendering experience and emotion, giving us readers the thrill of seeing the novel stretched into amorphous new shapes.--Maureen Corrigan
With grace and originality, Krauss writes of loss and many kinds of loneliness, the connections between memory and objects, between memory and identity, and about uncertainty.--Sandee Brawarsky
Starred Review: Krauss' masterful rendition of character is breathtaking, compelling.... This tour de force of fiction writing will deeply satisfy fans of the author's first two books and bring her legions more.
Exquisite...Krauss is a poetic stylist whose prose gives tremendous weight to her characters' pain and struggles.--Sharon Dilworth
[A] brave new novel...[Krauss] has written one of the most lyrical novels I've read in a long time.--Mike Fischer
[Krauss] writes of her characters' despair with striking lucidity...an eloquent dramatization of the need to find that missing piece that will give life its meaning.--Sam Sacks
[The characters'] stunningly distinct and lively voices hold us captive to their versions of their lives. Krauss, who began her career as a poet, can do just about anything with the English language.--Ann Harleman
A novel brimming with insights into the human psyche...often haunting and ultimately rewarding.--Monica Rhor
Krauss' organic scenes soar, she is stunning.--Karen R. Long
A complex, richly imagined new novel... Krauss's talent runs deep. And she cannot write a bad sentence: pound for pound, the sentences alone deliver epiphany upon epiphany.--Janet Byrne
Artlessly lovely... the pleasure of reading this book is in its details, its intimation of sincerity, its quiet wisdom.--Yevgeniya Traps
...I was captivated by the first chapter, and never disappointed thereafter as the various voices chimed in and the intricate connections began to connect. Perhaps it has a special resonance for writers (the two "All Rise" sections in particular, were utterly devastating)--but at the same time I feel sure all kinds of readers will respond to it.... The richness of invention, the beauty of the prose, the aptness of her central images (oh, the desk!), the depth of feeling: who would not be moved?--Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever
Krauss herself is a fiction pioneer, toying with fresh ways of rendering experience and emotion, giving us readers the thrill of seeing the novel stretched into amorphous new shapes.--Maureen Corrigan
With grace and originality, Krauss writes of loss and many kinds of loneliness, the connections between memory and objects, between memory and identity, and about uncertainty.--Sandee Brawarsky
Starred Review: Krauss' masterful rendition of character is breathtaking, compelling.... This tour de force of fiction writing will deeply satisfy fans of the author's first two books and bring her legions more.
Exquisite...Krauss is a poetic stylist whose prose gives tremendous weight to her characters' pain and struggles.--Sharon Dilworth
[A] brave new novel...[Krauss] has written one of the most lyrical novels I've read in a long time.--Mike Fischer
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