Praise for Paul Theroux:"Over the course of a long and productive career, [Theroux] has set his stories in many and various locations, never losing a travel writer’s eye for the hard, clear, material detail of the world around him." —
The New York Times"Theroux’s energy is infectious, his curiosity omnivorous, his audacity, well, remarkable." —
San Francisco Chronicle"Few writers, even those as or more prolific than Theroux, have managed to create—through the full range of their works—a voice so unified, so unwavering, so unmistakable. The Theroux persona is smart, irreverent, wry, democratic, honest, undeluded, intimate, American but in a good way, wistful, long-suffering but in a brave way, secular, anticlerical but in a mild way, bold." —
The New York Review of Books"Reading Theroux may make you cancel your plane tickets and settle in at home instead for a great read." —
Entertainment Weekly"[Theroux’s] work is distinguished by a splendid eye for detail and the telling gesture; a storyteller’s sense of pacing and gift for granting closure to the most subtle progression of events; and the graceful use of language." —
Chicago Tribune"One of our most original and agile writers." —
Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Never a dull moment . . . Vivid and deft.” — New York Review of Books
Maude Pratt is a legend, a photographer famous for her cutting-edge techniques and uncanny ability to strip away the masks of the world’s most recognizable celebrities and luminaries. Now in her seventies, Maude has been in the public eye since the 1920s, and her unparalleled portfolio includes intimate portraits of Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Picasso. While Maude possesses a singular capability to expose the inner lives of her subjects, she is obsessive about protecting her own, hiding her deepest secret in the “picture palace” of her memory. But when a young archivist comes to stay in Maude’s Cape Cod home and begins sorting through her fifty years of work, Maude is forced to face her past and come to terms, at last, with the tragedies she’s buried.
“A breathtaking tale . . . Intangibly, intricately brilliant.” — Telegraph (UK)