A House Among the Trees

When famed children’s author Mort Lear falls to his death in a stubborn attempt to trim a wayward tree limb, he leaves behind an invaluable legacy of work and an even greater wealth of secrets. Glass (Three Junes) employs her trademark multilayered character studies and intricately woven time-jumping narrative to slowly unspool each thread connecting Mort’s past to the lives of those he left behind. Tomasina “Tommy” Daulair, his long-term live-in assistant and the older sister of the boy Mort’s most beloved character was modeled after, inherits everything—including the burden of explaining the last-minute change in Mort’s will to museum director Meredith Galarza, whose love for Mort’s work is only exceeded by her obsession with the man himself. Tommy’s attempts to navigate her grief and the complexities of her new duties are interrupted by an unwelcome visit from Oscar-winning actor Nicholas Greene, eager to research his next role: a biopic covering the most dramatic periods of Mort’s life. Nick, to Tommy’s dismay, arrives with fresh information about Mort’s past that shows how little she, or any of his loved ones, truly knew him. Unfortunately, Glass demonstrates more skill in building anticipation than in following through with satisfying revelations. Her use of a fragmented, narrative-hopping timeline overwhelms the characters themselves, leaving them as obscure as Mort’s secrets. (June)