All is Beauty Now

In 1962, a well-to-do family in Brazil suffers the fallout at home and in their social orbit when 20-year-old daughter Luiza wades into the ocean and never emerges. The Maurers have it all: a lovely home and a stylish social circle, but the trauma of the restless Luiza’s disappearance reveals deep pain that lies below the surface. Luiza’s beautiful mother, Dora, whom Luiza very much resembles, acutely feels the loss of her first child but never gives up hope of her safe return; Luiza’s younger sisters, the intense Magda and sensitive Evie, are left adrift in the wake of her disappearance; and Luiza’s father Hugo’s bipolar disorder gets worse. Told from multiple points of view, even Luiza’s, this debut infuses the fierce familial love with the bitter ache of dreams lost and secrets kept. Faber’s swirling, dreamlike prose paints a wildly beautiful Brazil. Readers will lose themselves in this delicately wrought, heartbreaking tale. (Aug.)