Nicole Krauss has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of America’s most important novelists." She is the author of Man Walks Into a Room, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year; The History of Love, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Saroyan Prize for International Literature; Great House, a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award; and Forest Dark. In 2007 she was selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists, and in 2010 she was chosen for the New Yorker’s ‘Twenty Under Forty’ list. Her fiction has been published in the New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Nicole Krauss lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Great House
Hardcover
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- ISBN-13: 9780594721833
- Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
- Publication date: 10/12/2010
- Pages: 289
- Product dimensions: 9.62(w) x 11.28(h) x 1.10(d)
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Finalist for the 2010 National Book Award in Fiction
Winner of the 2011 ABA Indies Choice Honor Award in Fiction
Winner of the 2011 Anisfield-Wolf Award
Shortlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize in Fiction
A powerful, soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession, of the lives it passes through.
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. "This is a novel about the long journey of a magnificent desk as it travels through the twentieth century from one owner to the next. It is also a novel about love, exile, the defilements of war, and the restorative power of language."—National Book Award citation
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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
What gives the quickening of life to this elegiac novel…[is] exquisitely chosen sensory details that reverberate with emotional intensity…Krauss has taken great risks in dispensing with the whimsy and humor that she summoned for her tragic vision in The History of Love. Here she 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.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
A writing desk serves as Krauss's literary device to connect five striking vignettes. So, too, are the characters emotionally linked through lives that involve writing and reading, love overshadowed by loss, and connection outweighed by isolation. The book is narrated at a stately pace—which will be appreciated by the serious listener who might wish to stop the audio to write down a line or two—by Robert Ian MacKenzie (narrator of McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series) who demonstrates that he can do wonders with material he can sink his teeth into. His performance as a British professor married to a reclusive writer is a marvel, and Alma Cuervo's evocation of a lonely author haunted by her relationship to a previous owner of the desk is affecting and nuanced. Listeners who enjoy lingering over a top-notch novel will be intellectually nourished by this audio. A Norton hardcover. (Oct.)Booklist
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.Book Page
Surely if there is one book each author is meant to write, then there might also be one book each reader is meant to read. For plenty of fans out there, Great House just might be that book.Yevgeniya Traps - New York Press
Artlessly lovely… the pleasure of reading this book is in its details, its intimation of sincerity, its quiet wisdom.The New York Times Book Review
[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 GoldsteinThe Wall Street Journal
[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 SacksThe San Francisco Chronicle
While her prior, much-vaunted novel, The History of Love, was certainly fresh and winning, Great House strikes me as a richer, more seasoned exploration of the themes and images that bedevil Krauss… Krauss’ sentences are so beautiful, rendered in such simple, clear language, I had to stop to reread many.— Joan FrankThe Boston Globe
[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 HarlemanElle
The most heartbreaking part of Great House, the third novel by Nicole Krauss, is having to finish it…As the mysteries of this beautifully written novel come spooling out, you’ll marvel at how profoundly one brilliantly crafted metaphor involving a mute wooden artifact can remind us what it means to be alive.— Rachel RosenblitAssociated Press Staff
A novel brimming with insights into the human psyche…often haunting and ultimately rewarding.— Monica RhorThe Cleveland Plain Dealer
Krauss’ organic scenes soar, she is stunning.— Karen R. LongThe Philadelphia Inquirer
Exquisite…Krauss is a poetic stylist whose prose gives tremendous weight to her characters’ pain and struggles.— Sharon DilworthTheAtlantic.com
Krauss has a unique way of assembling novels—baroque, complex, and with stunning tidiness that isn’t clear until the very last page. All the parts do fit together in the end. The shape they form is the ghastly Great House, and its walls are ideas that leave the reader reverberating.— Jennie Rothenberg GritzNew York Press
Artlessly lovely… the pleasure of reading this book is in its details, its intimation of sincerity, its quiet wisdom.— Yevgeniya TrapsThe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[A] brave new novel…[Krauss] has written one of the most lyrical novels I’ve read in a long time.— Mike FischerJewish Week
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 BrawarskyThe Denver Post
Steeped in place and memory, Great House is a worthy successor to Krauss’ earlier works, more complex and more challenging.— Robin VidimosJewcy.com
Krauss’ third novel…is perhaps even more indicative [than The History of Love] of her ability to weave intricate storylines, craft emotionally layered characters and expertly draw out the pain, difficulty, and extreme complexity of human relationships.— Juliet LindermanHuffington Post
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 ByrneRebecca Newberger Goldstein - The New York Times Book Review
[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.Sam Sacks - The Wall Street Journal
[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.Joan Frank - The San Francisco Chronicle
While her prior, much-vaunted novel, The History of Love, was certainly fresh and winning, Great House strikes me as a richer, more seasoned exploration of the themes and images that bedevil Krauss… Krauss’ sentences are so beautiful, rendered in such simple, clear language, I had to stop to reread many.Ann Harleman - The Boston Globe
Krauss can do just about anything she wants with the English language.Maureen Corrigan - Fresh Air
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.Rachel Rosenblit - Elle
The most heartbreaking part of Great House, the third novel by Nicole Krauss, is having to finish it…As the mysteries of this beautifully written novel come spooling out, you’ll marvel at how profoundly one brilliantly crafted metaphor involving a mute wooden artifact can remind us what it means to be alive.Monica Rhor - Associated Press
A novel brimming with insights into the human psyche…often haunting and ultimately rewarding.Karen R. Long - The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Krauss’ organic scenes soar, she is stunning.Sharon Dilworth - The Philadelphia Inquirer
Exquisite…Krauss is a poetic stylist whose prose gives tremendous weight to her characters’ pain and struggles.Janet Byrne - Huffington Post
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.Jennie Rothenberg Gritz - TheAtlantic.com
Krauss has a unique way of assembling novels—baroque, complex, and with stunning tidiness that isn’t clear until the very last page. All the parts do fit together in the end. The shape they form is the ghastly Great House, and its walls are ideas that leave the reader reverberating.Mike Fischer - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[A] brave new novel…[Krauss] has written one of the most lyrical novels I’ve read in a long time.Sandee Brawarsky - Jewish Week
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.Robin Vidimos - The Denver Post
Steeped in place and memory, Great House is a worthy successor to Krauss’ earlier works, more complex and more challenging.Andrea Barrett
Stunning. . . . I was captivated by the first chapter and never disappointed thereafter. The richness of invention, the beauty of the prose, the aptness of her central images, the depth of feeling: who would not be moved?Juliet Linderman - Jewcy.com
Krauss’ third novel…is perhaps even more indicative [than The History of Love] of her ability to weave intricate storylines, craft emotionally layered characters and expertly draw out the pain, difficulty, and extreme complexity of human relationships.Sam Tanenhaus - The New York Times Book Review
One of America's most important novelists and an international literary sensation.Library Journal
An ominous writing desk is pivotal to the lives of the narrators of this chronicle, whose relationships are obscured like puzzle pieces defying placement until studied from every angle. The multiple narrators' performances are powerful and are true to the ethnicity of their respective characters. Krauss's (nicolekrauss.com) languid third novel, a haunted mystery brimming with lyrical details, is a National Book Award fiction finalist; her previous novel, The History of Love (2005)—also available from Recorded Books—won the William Saroyan International Prize. Essential. ["An intense and memorable reading experience," read the review of the New York Times best-selling Norton hc, LJ 8/10.—Ed.]—Judith Robinson, Dept. of Lib. & Information Studies, Univ. at BuffaloKirkus Reviews
A many-drawered writing desk resonates powerfully but for different reasons with the various characters in this novel about loss and retrieval from Krauss (The History of Love, 2005, etc.).
This brain-stretching novel travels back and forth across years and continents. In 1972 New York, a young novelist named Nadia spends one magical evening with a Chilean poet, Daniel, who then returns to Chile. Daniel leaves in her care a desk he claims belonged toFederico García Lorca. Shortly afterward, he dies at the hands of Pinochet's secret police. In 1999 a young woman named Leah announces to Nadia that she is Daniel's daughter and wants his desk returned. The reclusive Nadia lets Leah, who resembles Daniel, ship the desk to her home in Jerusalem but is emotionally devastated afterward—the desk represents her writing life. Her sense of herself as a woman and a writer deeply shaken, she decides to visit Jerusalem. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, a retired lawyer yearns to connect to his son Dovik, who has left his own legal career in England to move in with his father after his mother's funeral. Barely speaking, Dovik remains a frustrating mystery to his father. Back in 1970 in London, an Oxford professor finds his jealousy pricked when his wife Lotte, a writer and Holocaust survivor, gives her writing desk to the young poet Daniel, an admirer of her work. Only later, learning that Lotte gave up a baby for adoption before she married, does he realize that Daniel became a surrogate for her lost son. In 1998 in London, Leah is living with her brother when she goes to New York in search of the desk. While the disparate characters do not necessarily interact, their choices affect one another over the course of decades.
Brainy and often lyrically expressive, but also elusive and sometimes infuriatingly coy; Krauss is an acquired taste.