From the bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning A Visit From the Goon Squad.
In Jennifer Egan's highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O'Connor, age eighteen.
Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith's life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith's lost generation.
This spellbinding novel introduced Egan's remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.
A trip that takes the reader through stunning emotional terrain. - The New Yorker
Punches home like a blow to the stomach." - Elle
Mesmerizing....told with great assurance and power....Ms. Egan portrays the sisters with a quiet, heartbreaking clarity. - New York Times Book Review
Elegant and brilliant....spellbinding, heartbreaking, and told by a master. - Cosmopolitan
If there were justice in the world, no one would be allowed to write a first novel of such beauty and accomplishment.
Jennifer Egan is the author of A Visit From The Goon Squad, The Keep, Look at Me, The Invisible Circus, and the story collection Emerald City. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope, All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her non-fiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn.