The Last Life — Claire Messud

"The beginning, as I take it, was the summer night of my fifteenth year when my grandfather shot at me...." Narrated by Sagesse LaBasse, a young French-American woman with a ruthless regard for truth, The Last Life reveals the secret histories of a household shattered by an inexplicable act of violence. As she unravels her family's carefully spun stories, Sagesse struggles to come to terms with the LaBasses' haunted legacy, and to forge her own future. Moving across generations and continents, from colonial Algeria to the south of France to New England, this is a lush and beautifully told novel of lies and ghosts, love and honor. It is a work of stunning emotional power from a major new voice in American fiction.