The Deadwood Beetle: Summary and book reviews of The Deadwood Beetle by Mylene Dressler, plus links to an excerpt from The Deadwood Beetle and a biography of Mylene Dressler.

Tristan Martens, a retired entomologist, is shaken by the discovery of his mother's sewing table in a New York antique shop. He hasn't seen it since he was a boy in Holland, but he vividly remembers the last time he did. Only Tristan knows the painful truth behind the scrawled--and misunderstood--inscription on the bottom of the table, and he embarks on a scheme to acquire it from the shop owner, Cora Lowenstein, who insists it's not for sale. But as their lives become entangled, Tristan must make a choice. Can he tell Cora the truth? Begun in deceit, their relationship and Tristan's salvation hinge on his willingness to confront and finally confess the terrible secrets of his family's past. In startlingly beautiful prose resonant with dramatic tension, Mylene Dressler tells the heartrending story of an old man taking his last chance and struggling toward an elusive redemption and the even more distant hope of love. The Deadwood Beetle is a brilliant novel by a writer whose work the critics have called "lyrical" and "haunting."

Media Reviews

The Austin American-Statesman ...elegant and ambitious....Dressler...explores the damages of hearts left untended and secrets left untold....a big achievement.   The Bloomsbury Review A compelling read from start to finish, the prose shimmers...[an] elegantly polished novel...   The Baltimore Sun Written with a kind of menacing grace, The Deadwood Beetle compels the reader down the converging lines of Marten's growing love for Lowenstein and the truth of his past to their inevitable collision.   Bullymag.com ...nearly perfect...impressive.   The Christian Science Monitor Haunting...its execution is perfect....Dressler is a writer of chilling compression and suspense....a beautiful, sensitive story....   The Austin Chronicle A work of sure-handed contemporary wonder, a graceful fiction...[Dressler's] portrayal of Tristan...recalls Martha Cooley's feats in her restrained but remarkable The Archivist.   Publishers Weekly European world-weariness mingles with American optimism in this accomplished novel, dense with the scrap material of the past.   Library Journal Finely crafted. Susan Vreeland, author of Girl in Hyacinth Blue absorbing . . . compelling, and inventive.

Recent Reader Reviews

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