BOOK OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2015

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

You would have to be living under a rock to not have heard all the buzz about Fates and Furies, the new book by Lauren Groff. Just released two weeks ago, the novel is already long-listed for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the cover of The New York Times Book Review. When our Medici Patrons heard of her nominations, they all felt that we had discovered her when we awarded her The Medici Book Club Prize for her last book Arcadia. Whether we discovered her or not, we have loved her since she first published The Monsters of Templeton in 2008.

Lauren Groff is the perfect example of an author who has consistently written unique and compelling literary fiction. There was no question at Literary Affairs that Fates and Furies would be the October Book of the Month. It will have your book group talking about their views on marriage, the nature of privilege, how well we desire to know another person and the role of destiny in our lives. To quote a character in the novel, “Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste.” That alone with a glass of wine should get the conversation started!

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception.

Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation.

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it.

Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.