One rainy morning in 1892, people gather to mourn the death of Penelope Alderdice, San Francisco celebrated socialite and benevolent lady. Among them is a strange little woman named Bertha Ross, who claims to have known "Grace" as a young woman in the small coastal town of Waxwood in the 1850's. But Penelope's granddaughter, Vivian, has never heard of Grace or Waxwood.Bertha reveals surprising details about Grace's life in Waxwood, including her involvement with Evan, an artist and member of Brandywine, Waxwood's art colony. She hints at a disturbing mystery when she reveals Grace suddenly departed for San Francisco to marry her father's ambitious, cold, and ruthless clerk, Malcolm Alderdice. Vivian's mother, Larissa, refuses to acknowledge the truth or lies in Bertha Ross' stories about Penelope's life as a young woman. She keeps insisting Bertha is an imposter who has come not to mourn a woman she knew in her youth but to stir up trouble. Vivian, however, suspects the key to her grandmother's life and her own lies in Waxwood. She journeys to the coastal town, encountering Bertha's enthusiastic but vague memories and her daughter Ruth's reluctance to look back at the past. Upon Bertha's insistence, Ruth takes her to Brandywine to meet Verina Jones, Evan's niece, whom she believes will tell Vivian what she wants and needs to know about Grace. But Verina's reluctance to dredge up her own specter leaves Vivian in the dark until she discovers a packet of letters her grandmother wrote forty years ago in a box of drawings done by Evan.As Vivian confronts the specter that holds the truth to the secrets and myths buried in the family consciousness for forty years, she is forced to examine her grandmother's life as a mid-19th century debutante and her own life as a Gilded Age belle, acknowledge the oppressions, the conventions, and the expectations weighing her down and question what will be her future. Will she find her way out into the world as an autonomous being, or will she be haunted by the specter of her grandmother's unhappiness all her life?
| Author: Tam May |
| Publisher: Tam May |
| Publication Date: May 15, 2019 |
| Number of Pages: 210 pages |
| Language: English |
| Binding: Paperback |
| ISBN-10: 0998197947 |
| ISBN-13: 9780998197944 |
