Magnificence, Lydia Millet
Magnificence, Lydia Millet
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Magnificence

Author: Lydia Millet

Narrator: Xe Sands

Unabridged: 6 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/05/2012


Synopsis

This stunning novel introduces Susan Lindley, a woman adrift after her husband's death. Suddenly gifted her great uncle's Pasadena mansion, Susan decides to restore his extensive collection of preserved animals, tending to 'the fur and feathers, the beaks, the bones and shimmering tails.' Meanwhile, a menagerie of uniquely damaged humans - including a cheating husband and a chorus of eccentric elderly women - joins her in residence. Funny and heartbreaking, Magnificence is the story of a woman emerging from the sudden dissolution of her family. Millet's trademark themes - evolution and extinction, children and parenthood, loss and wonder - produce a rapturous final act to the critically acclaimed cycle of novels that began with How the Dead Dream.

About Lydia Millet

Lydia Millet is the PEN Award-winning author of eleven works of literary fiction, including Sweet Lamb of Heaven and Magnificence, which have been New York Times Notables and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists. She lives in Arizona.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Roxane on October 17, 2012

This is a book I love because of its flaws. So many things go wrong here––the last 1/3 is rushed, the prose is full of excess and indulgence, the plot is thin and incomplete, there are overly convenient solutions to the problems the protagonist encounters, but it doesn't matter. A great writer can g......more

Goodreads review by Heather on March 02, 2018

I didn't love this book. It was bizarre. And I found none of the characters either likable or relatable.......more

Goodreads review by Justin on February 01, 2015

It's taken me a long time, but I think I've finally worked out what makes Millet's trilogy so odd, even though the books are perfectly readable and lack the obvious oddness of her other recent work (e.g., Mermaids in Paradise or Oh Pure and Radiant Heart!) The novels in the 'Dead' trilogy present th......more

Goodreads review by Judy on June 10, 2016

Now I have come to the end of the trilogy: How the Dead Dream, Ghost Lights, Magnificence. I see why she calls it a trilogy (or at least the publisher calls it that.) Characters from the previous books inhabit the latter in a sequence where the time is a bit later than when the former book ended. E......more

Goodreads review by Deborah on February 12, 2013

SO annoying, so self-indulgent. Long, boring discourses (supposed to sound "off-the-cuff," but clearly arduously-researched) and on ridiculous subjects that no sane person has a genuine interest in. The book jacket says "funny and heartbreaking." I guess that is code for melodramatic and depressing.......more