Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2011
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Harriet Rose, 26, is an American photographer just winning recognition for her work. A travel fellowship brings her to visit her best friend and former roommate, Anne Gordon, in Switzerland. In an ongoing letter to her boyfriend, Harriet reports on strange developments in Anne's life, most notably her affair with a much older married man, which seems to be leading to a disastrous conclusion. Before she can rescue Anne, events take a series of unexpected turns, and Harriet must reexamine her own life and past, and come to terms with the difficulties and possibilities of human relationships.
Already excerpted in The New Yorker, Katherine Weber's witty first novel of attraction and deception, a tale with the sensibility of a Margaret Atwood, pulses with cultural references and word games that echo Nabokov.
First published in hardcover 1995. Reissued in 2011
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1995
"An amazing first novel.... wise, flippant, deep, witty - characteristics which are seldom found together. It is also a good story." - Madeleine L'Engle
"With vibrancy and a steady barrage of linguistic bio... Weber provides a blend of artistry and insight far beyond what we usually see in a first novel." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Wonderfully complex characters, witty prose, ironic situations, and tragic consequences ... It's Weber's control of the language that holds this cleverly touching book together." - Charlotte Observer
"Engaging ... Ms. Weber's nuanced renderings of childhood traumas, of families in crisis and of Harriet's grandmother are impressive." - New York Times Book Review
"I much enjoyed this delightfully witty novel." - Iris Murdoch
"This well-crafted debut heralds a masterly fiction writer." - Booklist
"There may, as in many first novels, be personal material here, but if so it has been alchemized into something decidedly rich and strange. It will be fascinating to see what Weber does next." - Publishers Weekly
This information about Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Katherine Weber is the author of the novels Triangle, The Little Women, The Music Lesson, and Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, the cultural historian Nicholas Fox Weber, and is a thesis adviser in the graduate writing program at Columbia University.
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