From New York Times bestselling author Edan Lepucki comes an enthralling saga about family secrets that grow more powerful with time, set against the magical, dangerous landscape of California
Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950’s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. Yet Ursa’s powers come with a cost. Soon this cultish community of sisterhood takes an ominous turn, prompting her son, Ray, and his pregnant lover, Cherry, to flee their home for Los Angeles and reinvent themselves far from Ursa��s insidious influence. But escaping their past won’t be so easy. A series of mysterious events forces Cherry to abandon their baby, leaving Ray to raise Opal alone.
Now a teenager and still heartbroken over the abandonment of the mother she never knew, Opal must journey into her own past to reveal the generations of secrets that gave rise to the shimmering source of her family's painful legacy.
From the forests of Santa Cruz, to the 1980s glam of Melrose Avenue to a solitary mansion among the oil derricks off La Cienega Boulevard, and brimming with the double-edged capacity of memory to both heal and harm, Time’s Mouth is a poignant and evocative excavation of the bonds that bind families together.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950’s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. Yet Ursa’s powers come with a cost. Soon this cultish community of sisterhood takes an ominous turn, prompting her son, Ray, and his pregnant lover, Cherry, to flee their home for Los Angeles and reinvent themselves far from Ursa��s insidious influence. But escaping their past won’t be so easy. A series of mysterious events forces Cherry to abandon their baby, leaving Ray to raise Opal alone.
Now a teenager and still heartbroken over the abandonment of the mother she never knew, Opal must journey into her own past to reveal the generations of secrets that gave rise to the shimmering source of her family's painful legacy.
From the forests of Santa Cruz, to the 1980s glam of Melrose Avenue to a solitary mansion among the oil derricks off La Cienega Boulevard, and brimming with the double-edged capacity of memory to both heal and harm, Time’s Mouth is a poignant and evocative excavation of the bonds that bind families together.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Edan Lepucki's engrossing third novel tackles so much about the physical and psychic terrain of California, with its hippies and hipsters, its oil derricks and redwoods. It's a beautiful book about a much-mythologized place, but its heart lives much closer to home: in the real and complex bond between parent and child." - Rumaan Alam
"Stunningly original and deeply human, Time's Mouth is one of those books that's impossible not to love. It's a little magical, a little emotional, but most of all a meditation on loss and longing and the search for meaning in an inexplicable universe. I'm an Edan Lepucki fan, and this is her best book yet." - Janelle Brown
"Edan Lepucki's new novel is an astonishing achievement. This sweeping intergenerational saga has California cults and communes, mystics and astral travel, but it's also a profound and moving exploration of family--the way it both wounds and heals us, the ways we both long for and run from its embrace. Written in crystalline prose that is as wise as it is witty, Time's Mouth left me breathless with admiration." - Dan Chaon
"Novels like Time's Mouth are rare: it's both delightful and emotional. Beyond the pleasures of time-travel, all-female cults, and an ominous look at California's legacy of mysticism, the heart of Time's Mouth is a story of mothers and daughters. Edan Lepucki writes with insight and deep pathos about the gifts and curses passed down over generations, and of time's ability not only to injure but to heal." - Stephanie Danler
"Lepucki's prose is tactile, sensual, nimble--precise and full of pleasures. Time's Mouth is an engrossing novel and a sprawling work of imagination." - Charles Yu
"Stunningly original and deeply human, Time's Mouth is one of those books that's impossible not to love. It's a little magical, a little emotional, but most of all a meditation on loss and longing and the search for meaning in an inexplicable universe. I'm an Edan Lepucki fan, and this is her best book yet." - Janelle Brown
"Edan Lepucki's new novel is an astonishing achievement. This sweeping intergenerational saga has California cults and communes, mystics and astral travel, but it's also a profound and moving exploration of family--the way it both wounds and heals us, the ways we both long for and run from its embrace. Written in crystalline prose that is as wise as it is witty, Time's Mouth left me breathless with admiration." - Dan Chaon
"Novels like Time's Mouth are rare: it's both delightful and emotional. Beyond the pleasures of time-travel, all-female cults, and an ominous look at California's legacy of mysticism, the heart of Time's Mouth is a story of mothers and daughters. Edan Lepucki writes with insight and deep pathos about the gifts and curses passed down over generations, and of time's ability not only to injure but to heal." - Stephanie Danler
"Lepucki's prose is tactile, sensual, nimble--precise and full of pleasures. Time's Mouth is an engrossing novel and a sprawling work of imagination." - Charles Yu
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