From the author of the acclaimed novel Temporary, an intimate exploration of time, a fable about love, an epic daydream for a broken-hearted world
Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn’t there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller’s dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.
Terrace Story follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and reverberations: the little family of three, their future now deeply uncertain, and those who orbit their fragile universe. The distance and love between these characters expands limitlessly, across generations. How far can the mind travel when it’s looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing, and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?
Based on the National Magazine Award–winning story, Hilary Leichter’s profound second novel asks how we nurture love when death looms over every moment. From one of our most innovative and daring writers, Terrace Story is an astounding meditation on loss, a reverie about extinction, and a map for where to go next.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Prepare to be astonished. Like the magical terrace of its title, Hilary Leichter's spectacular second novel contains the whole world. Told with boundless imagination, wisdom, and effortlessly gorgeous prose, Terrace Story will transform your understanding of time, space, memory, love, longing, and family and make you see your life anew. This book is a wonder." - Jessamine Chan
"Truly brilliant and profound. There's magic between these covers. Leichter is the master of creating a mood and a world that is both breezy and earth-shattering. I felt changed by this book. Every page is revelatory and left me happily breathless, and the story broke my heart in the best way. I thank the literary heavens for Terrace Story." - Diane Cook
"Hilary Leichter, one of our most original novelists, amazes us again with a beautifully unclassifiable novel. Step out onto the terrace, where space and time, cause and effect, and fiction and reality have been redefined and gorgeously subverted. Terrace Story isn't a novel you merely read; it's a book you inhabit." - Hernán Diaz
"Terrace Story is brilliantly inventive, enchanting, disturbing, beautiful, and unlike anything I've ever read. I loved what it does with time--gone and not gone, lost and found where we never put it. Really extraordinary." - Joan Silber
"Truly brilliant and profound. There's magic between these covers. Leichter is the master of creating a mood and a world that is both breezy and earth-shattering. I felt changed by this book. Every page is revelatory and left me happily breathless, and the story broke my heart in the best way. I thank the literary heavens for Terrace Story." - Diane Cook
"Hilary Leichter, one of our most original novelists, amazes us again with a beautifully unclassifiable novel. Step out onto the terrace, where space and time, cause and effect, and fiction and reality have been redefined and gorgeously subverted. Terrace Story isn't a novel you merely read; it's a book you inhabit." - Hernán Diaz
"Terrace Story is brilliantly inventive, enchanting, disturbing, beautiful, and unlike anything I've ever read. I loved what it does with time--gone and not gone, lost and found where we never put it. Really extraordinary." - Joan Silber
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