The Paper Palace

Besprechung
Praise for The Paper Palace:

"Beguiling." Vogue, "The Best Books to Read This Summer"

"Nail-biting." Town & Country

This one s filled with secrets, love, lies and a summer beach house. What more could you ask? Parade, Best Beach Reads

The gorgeous scenery of Back Woods (a stand-in for Wellfleet, Mass.) provides an atmospheric backdrop to Elle s ruminations and revelatory flashbacks. Los Angeles Times, 10 best books for your summer beach reading

"Ensconced in her family s rustic compound on Cape Cod for an annual summer trip, Elle Bishop is at a crossroads, forced to choose between the two great loves of her life. Should she run off with the longtime bestie she s secretly been in love with since they endured a ghastly childhood trauma together? Or stay with her cherished husband, a dashing Brit who s the father of her kids?" People

Doubly blessed when it comes to descriptive powers, Heller is as good on nature as she is on interiors. The New York Times

"An assured debut. A sultry tale of Waspish New England that captures the spirit of Updike and Cheever." The Times (London)

"Tightly woven and immediate, The Paper Palace takes us deep into a vivid summer landscape, a family, and a private, longstanding love story, and holds us there from start to finish." Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Interestings and The Female Persuasion

The Paper Palace turned out to be the very page-turner I needed. If you want to learn something about love over a long time how it can hurt, how it can soar read this book. Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes

Miranda Cowley Heller has written a magnificent page-turner, a love story that shimmers with desire, intelligence, and humor. Lush and gorgeously written, The Paper Palace is as intoxicating as a summer night by the sea. I didn t want it to end. Cynthia D Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of Good Company

"It's been ages since I was so absorbed in a contemporary novel. I loved it." Nick Hornby, New York Times bestselling author of Just Like You

Set in the physical and psychic landscape of Cape Cod, The Paper Palace is a fever dream of a novel, luminous with love and shot through with humor and heartbreak. It is a book that explores the indelibility of childhood, what it means to be shaped by place, and all that is unpredictable about the human heart. I couldn t put it down." Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game

"A beautifully constructed, wonderfully intelligent and beguiling novel, rich with a multitude of pleasures." William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart

"It's glorious and gorgeous. I was absolutely immersed and gripped and I'm devastated to have finished it." Marian Keyes, author of Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

"In rich and sensuous prose, Cowley Heller, cracks open the human heart and exposes her character's choices: the paths not taken and the devastating consequences. I smelled the old cabins and the backwoods, felt the pond water lapping around my ankles, experienced the love and loss of family. A perceptive and powerful story which will stay with me for a long time." Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

"I can't think of a more brilliant debut than The Paper Palace. Enticing, assured and multi-layered, it introduces a major new voice in American fiction . . . A marvel." Cressida Connolly, auhor of The Happiest Days

"Absolutely phenomenal novel - dazzling writing and utterly addictive. Read it." Rosamund Lupton, New York Times bestselling author of Sister

"It felt as if I read The Paper Palace in one go. It was completely immersive, and shocking, and utterly alive. I loved it." Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina

"Beautifully written, richly compelling, The Paper Palace is as dark and uncompromising as it is tender and lyrical. Here is a love triangle that keeps you turning the pages, a vivid evocation of place, and an exploration of the one of the most unsettling of secrets." Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

"Captivating debut full of lush atmospheric details. This will keep the reader guessing all the way to the end. Publishers Weekly

The moody and atmospheric setting of the shadowy paths and ponds of the Back Woods is described in lush detail that makes a sharp contrast to the colder, sharper elements of Elle s story From the first pages of her debut novel, Heller pulls no punches. Some of them just sneak up on you later on. Kirkus

Textauszug

1

Today. August 1, the Back Woods.

6:30 a.m.

Things come from nowhere. The mind is empty and then, inside the frame, a pear. Perfect, green, the stem atilt, a single leaf. It sits in a white ironstone bowl, nestled among the limes, in the center of a weathered picnic table, on an old screen porch, at the edge of a pond, deep in the woods, beside the sea. Next to the bowl is a brass candlestick covered in drips of cold wax and the ingrained dust of a long winter left on an open shelf. Half-eaten plates of pasta, an unfolded linen napkin, dregs of claret in a wine bottle, a breadboard, handmade, rough-hewn, the bread torn not sliced. A mildewed book of poetry lies open on the table. "To a Skylark," soaring into the blue-painful, thrilling-replays in my mind as I stare at the still life of last night's dinner. "The world should listen then, as I am listening now." He read it so beautifully. "For Anna." And we all sat there, spellbound, remembering her. I could look at him and nothing else for eternity and be happy. I could listen to him, my eyes closed, feel his breath and his words wash over me, time and time and time again. It is all I want.

Beyond the edge of the table, the light dims as it passes through the screens before brightening over the dappled trees, the pure blue of the pond, the deep-black shadows of the tupelos at the water's edge where the reach of the sun falters this early in the day. I ponder a quarter-inch of thick, stale espresso in a dirty cup and consider drinking it. The air is raw. I shiver under the faded lavender bathrobe-my mother's-that I put on every summer when we return to the camp. It smells of her, and of dormancy tinged with mouse droppings. This is my favorite hour in the Back Woods. Early morning on the pond before anyone else is awake. The sunlight clear, flinty, the water bracing, the whippoorwills finally quiet.

Outside the porch door, on the small wooden deck, sand has built up between the slats-it needs to be swept. A broom leans against the screen, indenting it, but I ignore it and head down the little path that leads to our beach. Behind me, the door hinges shriek in resistance.

I drop my bathrobe to the ground and stand naked at the water's edge. On the far side of the pond, beyond the break of pine and shrub oak, the ocean is furious, roaring. It must be carrying a storm in its belly from somewhere out at sea. But here, at the edge of the pond, the air is honey-still. I wait, watch, listen . . . the chirping, buzzing of tiny insects, a wind that stirs the trees too gently. Then I wade in up to my knees and dive headlong into the freezing water. I swim out into the deep, past the water lilies, pushed forward by exhilaration, freedom, and an adrenaline rush of nameless panic. I have a shadow-fear of snapping turtles coming up from the depths to bite my heavy breasts. Or perhaps they will be drawn by the smell of sex as I open and close my legs. I'm suddenly overwhelmed by the need to get back to the safety of the shallows, where I can see the sandy bottom. I wish I were braver. But I also love the fear, the catch of breath in my throat, my thrumming heartbeat as I step out of the water.

I wring as much as I can from my long hair, grab a threadbare towel from the clothesline my mother has strung between two scraggly pines, lie down on the warm sand. An electric-blue dragonfly lands on my nipple and perches there before moving on. An ant crawls over the Saharan dunes my body has just created in its path.

Last night I finally fucked him. After all these years of imagining it, never knowing if he still wanted me. And then the moment I knew it would happen: all the wine, Jonas's beautiful voice in ode, my husband Peter lying on the sofa in a grappa haze, my three children asleep in their cabin, my mother already at the sink washing dishes

Beschreibung
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

THE PAPER PALACE IS:

Filled with secrets, love, lies and a summer beach house. What more could you ask? Parade

A deeply emotional love story the unraveling of secrets, lies and a very complex love triangle. Reese Witherspoon (Reese s Book Club July 21 Pick)

"Nail-biting."  Town & Country

A magnificent page-turner. Cynthia D Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author

[An] irresistible placement of a complicated family in a bewitching place. The New York Times

A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades.

This house, this place, knows all my secrets.

It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at The Paper Palace the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.