From the acclaimed writer of Private Altars, comes a story of driving lyrical force set in Manhattan in the 1950s. When he is expelled from boarding school, Gabriel Gibbs is sent to live with his older brother Spencer in New York. Rather than a punishment, this becomes an exhilarating invitation to a dazzling world, from smoking cigars at the Plaza Hotel to weekend house parties filled with tennis and cocktails. It is in this heady atmosphere -- from white-gloved Park Avenue to literary Greenwich Village -- that Gabriel first glimpses the elusive Lillian Dawes. Free-spirited and mysterious, Lillian captures the imaginations of those in all the best circles, including both brothers. As their lives entwine, so begins the powerful and poignant unraveling of innocence.
--Publishers WeeklyFrom the acclaimed writer of Private Altars, comes a story of driving lyrical force set in Manhattan in the 1950s. When he is expelled from boarding school, Gabriel Gibbs is sent to live with his older brother Spencer in New York. Rather than a punishment, this becomes an exhilarating invitation to a dazzling world, from smoking cigars at the Plaza Hotel to weekend house parties filled with tennis and cocktails. It is in this heady atmosphere -- from white-gloved Park Avenue to literary Greenwich Village -- that Gabriel first glimpses the elusive Lillian Dawes. Free-spirited and mysterious, Lillian captures the imaginations of those in all the best circles, including both brothers. As their lives entwine, so begins the powerful and poignant unraveling of innocence.
--Publishers WeeklyKatherine Mosby's previous works include a collection of poetry, The Book of Uncommon Prayer, and two novels, Private Altars and The Season of Lillian Dawes, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in New York City and teaches at New York University's Stern Business School.
"Mosby has an impeccable way with narration and dialogue". -- USA Today"Intensely romantic...sings with a music seldom found in contemporary writing." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch"A pleasure to read." -- Orlando Sentinel"...a wistful fairy-tale." -- Seattle Times"...effortless and seductive..." -- Baltimore Sun"Mosby's rich, elegant writing makes this novel memorable." -- Booklist"Mosby's elegant, poetic prose is as smooth and shimmering as velvet." -- Publishers Weekly"A charming novel with needle-sharp wit and the lingering aroma of youthful infatuation." -- Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife"Mosby writes with fluid grace...her images are magical." -- People on PRIVATE ALTARS"Tremendously ambitious...and impressive." -- The New Yorker on PRIVATE ALTARS"Rich and accomplished." -- Time Magazine on PRIVATE ALTARS"Mosby has a true storyteller's voice." -- Boston Globe on PRIVATE ALTARS"...An unusual, extraordinary work that there is really nothing to compare it to in contemporary fiction." -- Madison Smartt Bell"A fairy tale of enormous charm." -- Annabel Davis-Goff, author of This Cold Country"Mosby shows an extraordinary gift. A." -- Entertainment Weekly"Mosby writes like no one working today." -- New York Newsday"Enchanting, heartfelt, haunting." -- The Charlotte Observer
Mosby's sensuous, lyrical prose, highly praised in her debut novel, Private Altars, is the saving grace of her second book, which turns out to be a contrived and inflated story that's long on atmosphere but short on credibility. The Gibbs brothers, Spencer and Gabriel, are scions of a humorless, oppressive blueblood family that takes snobbism to new extremes. Now orphans, the siblings have rebelled against their straightlaced relatives, and when 17-year-old Gabriel is expelled from boarding school, he moves in with his older brother in a seedy apartment in lower Manhattan. It's the 1950s, and a halcyon time for those in high society. Indeed, the rich are "shamelessly selfindulgent," while such humble figures as a men's room attendant and an elderly shoeshine "boy" show true nobility. While Spencer labors on a book of short stories, the preternaturally observant Gabriel wanders about New York, where one day he gets a glimpse of the tantalizingly mysterious Lillian Dawes, a beautiful woman in her 20s. Lillian is radiant and kind, and although Gabriel discovers that she uses several names and refuses to speak about her past, his adolescent crush grows acute after he and Spencer attend a Gatsbyesque house party where Gabriel becomes the unlikely confidant of several of the guests, including Lillian. When Spencer and Lillian fall in love, the course of Gabriel's loss of innocence begins. Mosby works too hard at making Lillian enchanting and multitalented and Gabriel presciently ubiquitous, and at portraying the rich as caricatures (one eccentric character takes her own heavy silverware to good restaurants, lest the house flatware not have the right weight). The melodramatic denouement, clumsily foreshadowed from the beginning, moves the book into the realm of overheated romantic fiction. That's too bad, because Mosby's elegant, poetic prose is as smooth and shimmering as velvet. One hopes she can create a more credible plot next time. 5-city author tour. (Apr. 7) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
"Mosby has an impeccable way with narration and dialogue". -- USA Today"Intensely romantic...sings with a music seldom found in contemporary writing." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch"A pleasure to read." -- Orlando Sentinel"...a wistful fairy-tale." -- Seattle Times"...effortless and seductive..." -- Baltimore Sun"Mosby's rich, elegant writing makes this novel memorable." -- Booklist"Mosby's elegant, poetic prose is as smooth and shimmering as velvet." -- Publishers Weekly"A charming novel with needle-sharp wit and the lingering aroma of youthful infatuation." -- Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife"Mosby writes with fluid grace...her images are magical." -- People on PRIVATE ALTARS"Tremendously ambitious...and impressive." -- The New Yorker on PRIVATE ALTARS"Rich and accomplished." -- Time Magazine on PRIVATE ALTARS"Mosby has a true storyteller's voice." -- Boston Globe on PRIVATE ALTARS"...An unusual, extraordinary work that there is really nothing to compare it to in contemporary fiction." -- Madison Smartt Bell"A fairy tale of enormous charm." -- Annabel Davis-Goff, author of This Cold Country"Mosby shows an extraordinary gift. A." -- Entertainment Weekly"Mosby writes like no one working today." -- New York Newsday"Enchanting, heartfelt, haunting." -- The Charlotte Observer
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