Private Rites

Armfield (Our Wives Under the Sea) offers a grim and absorbing retelling of King Lear set in a damp near-future city resembling London. It’s rained for so long that the infrastructure has collapsed and residents, who travel by water taxi, wonder if they’re living in the end-times. Navigating this “endless ending” are three sisters—Isla, Irene, and Agnes—who are also coming to terms with the death of their famous father, a pompous architect of “mad glass boxes for rich people.” Not only did the sisters hate him, they barely tolerate one another. Reunited on the eve of the funeral, they bicker (“I don’t think... you can fix however many years of him playing us off against each other,” Agnes says) before discovering a new dimension of their father’s cruelty when his will is read. The character work is well done, with chapters revealing eldest daughter Isla’s bossiness, Irene’s struggle to stand out as the middle sister, and Agnes’s irresponsibility. Though the apocalyptic denouement feels a bit contrived, Armfield succeeds at conjuring her characters’ existential fears. This well-wrought family drama is tough to shake. Agent: Sam Copeland, RCW Literary. (Dec.)