A Rhode Island family teeters on the brink of meltdown in the first novel from the author of Silk, a New York Times
Notable story collection. Maggie Gifford spends her days gardening, writing poems and sewing strange sculptures; her husband, Hugh, and her cousin Jake are devoted to her. One afternoon Maggie, naked and alone in the house, discovers a stranger taking a bath in her basement. She offers to scrub the intruder's back, thus beginning an involvement that threatens the quiet harmony of her life. Mazur describes the patterns of love as resembling "the interlocking mosaic tiling patterns of the great Moorish palaces and mosques, with their interwoven stars and crosses and diamonds," and this is certainly true of the relationships that develop here. The stranger, Grenville, becomes an obsession for Maggie, who, unaware that Jake is in love with her, confides in him. Tormented by the knowledge that his cousin is falling for another man, Jake begins to loathe this stranger and to make flawed decisions about his own life. Then Maggie's children and grandchildren arrive for their annual summer visit. When Maggie's skittish but fiercely sexual daughter, Gillian, begins her own entanglement with Grenville (not to mention some "crazed rutting" with Jake), their family web is strained almost beyond recognition. Mazur's sharply realized characters and often remarkable prose make up for the occasionally unlikely plot developments and moments of unconvincing dialogue, while the beauty of the rural Rhode Island setting and the intrigue of the plot add to the pleasure. (June)
