A Gentleman in Moscow meets My Brilliant Friend in this novel of two estranged friends who reunite to confront each other and the devastating betrayal that tore them apart
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven’t spoken to one another in over four decades.
As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making their way in the glitzy spotlight of postwar Hollywood, Edith and Lacey share a deep-rooted bond that once saved them from isolation and despair, providing comfort from the public and private traumas that they had each endured and which a newly optimistic world was eager to forget. Told through a continuous, twisting conversation that unfolds over the course of a single evening, in which each woman tells her story and reveals long-hidden secrets, the narratives of Edith and Lacey burn with atmosphere, mystery, resentment, and regret.
Set against the vivid landscapes of Los Angeles and unfolding with the evanescence of a dream or a memory, Goldenseal peels away the layers of an intimate female friendship to reveal a stirring and haunting story about the search for connection and the lingering echoes of lost love.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven’t spoken to one another in over four decades.
As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making their way in the glitzy spotlight of postwar Hollywood, Edith and Lacey share a deep-rooted bond that once saved them from isolation and despair, providing comfort from the public and private traumas that they had each endured and which a newly optimistic world was eager to forget. Told through a continuous, twisting conversation that unfolds over the course of a single evening, in which each woman tells her story and reveals long-hidden secrets, the narratives of Edith and Lacey burn with atmosphere, mystery, resentment, and regret.
Set against the vivid landscapes of Los Angeles and unfolding with the evanescence of a dream or a memory, Goldenseal peels away the layers of an intimate female friendship to reveal a stirring and haunting story about the search for connection and the lingering echoes of lost love.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"For anyone who has ever had - and lost - that rarest of gifts: a true friend. A deft, exquisite novel, one that will stay in your heart like a memory, as if it were one of your very own." - Barbara Bourland
"Goldenseal is a savagely beautiful novel about the dangers and damages of passionate lifelong female friendship, intertwined with a brilliantly wrought elegy for the twentieth century. Hummel is a powerful writer. This book is extraordinary." - Kate Christensen
"I devoured Goldenseal, enchanted by the satin prose and dialogue as smooth as cognac. I loved everything about this story of exquisite tenderness, passionate friendship and betrayal, the electric rendezvous of past and future. The backdrop is an L.A. hotel, haunted by a bygone elegance; but it's the voices of Edith and Lacey that truly astonish. They're still ringing in my ears, clear as a hotel fountain." - Miciah Bay Gault
"Goldenseal is the rare novel whose style perfectly evokes an earlier era while its meaning feels wholly contemporary. Like the characters within it, we realize how hard it is to understand our lives without the wider view that only comes with time. Sweeping yet intimate, and with characters who feel as alive as our closest friends, Goldenseal is a marvel." - Stacey Swann
"Goldenseal is a savagely beautiful novel about the dangers and damages of passionate lifelong female friendship, intertwined with a brilliantly wrought elegy for the twentieth century. Hummel is a powerful writer. This book is extraordinary." - Kate Christensen
"I devoured Goldenseal, enchanted by the satin prose and dialogue as smooth as cognac. I loved everything about this story of exquisite tenderness, passionate friendship and betrayal, the electric rendezvous of past and future. The backdrop is an L.A. hotel, haunted by a bygone elegance; but it's the voices of Edith and Lacey that truly astonish. They're still ringing in my ears, clear as a hotel fountain." - Miciah Bay Gault
"Goldenseal is the rare novel whose style perfectly evokes an earlier era while its meaning feels wholly contemporary. Like the characters within it, we realize how hard it is to understand our lives without the wider view that only comes with time. Sweeping yet intimate, and with characters who feel as alive as our closest friends, Goldenseal is a marvel." - Stacey Swann
Visitors also looked at these books
Used availability for Maria Hummel's Goldenseal