Lulu

In this excerpt from Adrienne Celt's novel The Daughters, a mother and daughter venture forth to the Chicago Civic Opera House to see an underground production of the legendary opera Lulu. The little girl - herself called Lulu, named for the amoral, seductive character by her opera-loving mother - is intoxicated by a world of transcendent, fantastical secrets. Lulu's mother - resenting her role as spectator and not star - soon grows restless and cold, her bitterness rising to the surface. Young Lulu now realizes the bottle of whiskey "she'd waved toward me in the second intermission had solved the long mystery of my mother's most peculiar perfume." Celt's enchanting prose draws us instantly into the multi-layered, intensely charged relationship between mother and daughter. - Tara Ison


Genre: Literary Fiction