Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2015
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The reclusive Harriet Wolf, revered author and family matriarch, has a final confession - a love story. Years after her death, as her family comes together one last time, the mystery of Harriet's life hangs in the balance. Does the truth lie in the rumored final book of the series that made Harriet a world-famous writer, or will her final confession be lost forever?
Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders tells the moving story of the unforgettable Wolf women in four distinct voices: the mysterious Harriet, who, until now, has never revealed the secrets of her past; her fiery, overprotective daughter, Eleanor; and her two grown granddaughters - Tilton, the fragile yet exuberant younger sister, who's become a housebound hermit, and Ruth, the older sister, who ran away at sixteen and never looked back.
When Eleanor is hospitalized, Ruth decides it's time to do right by a pact she made with Tilton long ago: to return home and save her sister. Meanwhile, Harriet whispers her true life story to the reader. It's a story that spans the entire twentieth century and is filled with mobsters, outcasts, a lonesome lion, and a home for wayward women. It's also a tribute to her lifelong love of the boy she met at the Maryland School for Feeble-minded Children.
Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders, Julianna Baggott's most sweeping and mesmerizing novel yet, offers a profound meditation on motherhood and sisterhood, as well as on the central importance of stories. It is a novel that affords its characters that rare chance we all long for-the chance to reimagine the stories of our lives while there's still time.
"Moments of heartbreak balance moments of hilarity in Baggott's ambitious portrait of a family created from equal parts secrecy and love." - Kirkus
"This is Julianna Baggott's best book, which is one way of saying it's one of the best books you'll read this year, or any other." - Brock Clarke, author of the national bestseller An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
"Dazzling and ambitious, Julianna Baggott's gorgeously written new novel explores the miracles born out of desperation of three generations of women, all set against an astounding sweep of twentieth-century history ... This novel is so full of wonders that it leaves you haunted, amazed, and, like every great read, irrevocably changed." Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You
"Julianna Baggott's very winning Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders is only incidentally about a lost masterpiece, a marriage bound by string, and a lunatic literary family. Dig deeper and it's about mothers and daughters and the conflicts and compromises that amount to love." - Joshua Ferris, Man Booker Prize finalist for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
"Julianna Baggott's richly imagined new novel is filled with laughter and heartbreak, and - most wonderfully - with the bright, pained release of stories, which flutter from these pages like living birds." - Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point, long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award
"All stories worth telling are love stories, a character says in Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders. This novel about a famous writer's lost manuscript, the complex legacy of family secrets, and - yes - a love story that unfolds across generations is inventive, playful, and deeply affecting." - Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
"An utterly original tale told in four distinct voices, Harriet Wolff's Seventh Book of Wonders is an exhilarating melange of heartrending loss, hilarity, and enchantment. Julianna Baggott has indeed created a book of wonders." - Mira Bartok, author of National Book Critics Circle Award winner and New York Times bestseller The Memory Palace
This information about Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Julianna Baggott - who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher (The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted) and N.E. Bode (The Anybodies) - has published 17 books, including novels for adults, younger readers, and collections of poetry.
Her latest novel, Pure, is the first of a trilogy; film rights have sold to Fox 2000.
Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Best American Poetry, Best Creative Nonfiction, Real Simple, on NPR.org, as well as read on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Here and Now."
Her novels have been book-pick selections by People Magazine's summer reading, Washington Post book-of-the-week, a Booksense selection, a Boston Herald Book Club selection, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Books ...
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