Magnificence A Novel Author: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... more » 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.« less