"A dazzlingly original new novel from the acclaimed author of The Borrower. Now, Makkai returns with an ingenious novel set on an historic estate that once housed an arts colony. Doug, the husband of the estate's heir, desperately needs the colony files to get his stalled academic career back on track. But what he discovers when he finally gets his hands on them is more than he bargained for. Doug may never learn the house's secrets, but the reader...

Attracted to an artists' colony on a drought-stricken honey farm where residents are offered free room and board in exchange for hard labor, a wide-eyed poetry graduate falls for a fellow artist and begins to notice tensions linked to ominous events and her hostess's past.

Nell Parker has a PhD in Art History, a loving husband named Josh, and a Craftsman bungalow in Madison, WI. But her last pregnancy ended later in the second trimester, and rather than pausing to grieve, she pushes harder for testing and fertility treatments. Urging Nell to apply for jobs, Josh believes his wife needs something else to focus on other than a baby that may never be. Finding a job turns out to be difficult for an art historian . . . until...

In upstate New York, an aging mother wonders why someone would murder her daughter, killed as a little girl fifty years earlier. So a friend with money hires novelist Paul Graves to write, not necessarily the truth since the crime was never solved, just something to put the mother's mind at rest. Who knows, in the process he might even discover the truth.