Magnificence — Lydia Millet

A woman embarks on a dazzling new phase in her life after inheriting a sprawling mansion and its vast collection of taxidermy.

Lydia Millet is “one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation” (Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times). This stunning novel introduces Susan Lindley, a woman adrift after her husband's death. Suddenly gifted her great uncle's Pasadena mansion, Susan decides to restore his extensive collection of preserved animals, tending to “the fur and feathers, the beaks, the bones and shimmering tails.” Meanwhile, a menagerie of uniquely damaged humans -- including a cheating husband and a chorus of eccentric elderly women -- joins her in residence.

Millet's “flawlessly beautiful” (Salon) prose creates a setting both humorous and wondrous as Susan defends her inheritance from freeloading relatives and explores the mansion's many mysterious spaces. Funny and heartbreaking, Magnificence is the story of a woman emerging from the sudden dissolution of her family. Millet's trademark themes -- evolution and extinction, children and parenthood, loss and wonder -- produce a rapturous final act to the critically acclaimed cycle of novels that began with How the Dead Dream.