The Best of the Backlist: Julia Glass
The Best of the Backlist
A look at worthy authors you may not know, focusing on their entire collection of in-stock backlist titles. The backlist is a great way to meet some new authors and get a sense of their work.
Julia Glass
Julia Glass has novels set in widely disparate places and during different times, yet one theme—the complexity of relationships—is present in all her novels. Her first book, Three Junes, won the National Book Award, and introduced readers to Glass’s writing style (strong narrative, alternating views, lengthy time-spans). Three Junes is set primarily in Greece, but darts around the world to follow the fortunes (and not) of the three McLeod brothers, Scottish men who take decidedly different paths (vet, chef, bookstore owner in NYC) and who have very different views of living in the same household. You will enjoy how Glass easily shows her characters’ perspectives through their individual versions of the same circumstances. The Whole World Over brings back one character from Three Junes (as a side person, but one who remains a stable voice) and brings the reader to post-9/11 New York City, where a talented and outgoing woman chef feels stifled by both the atmosphere of New York as well as her husband, who is definitely a ‘glass-half-empty’ type. On a whim she takes a job in New Mexico, cooking at the Governor’s Mansion, where her life takes some decided upbeat turns. Her old life in New York calls, as do her friends (and not incidentally her husband, her child’s father). In Glass’s most recent novel, I See You Everywhere, two sisters—Clem and Louisa Jardine—could not be more unalike, and their differences have always served as the main force in their relationship. Louisa is jealous of Clem’s life, vitality, and relationship with their mother…and, yet, she would be lost without the ability to live through Clem, and Clem would be lost without Louisa’s stability. The book provides two strong and very interesting women characters, and sails through their life (past and present) in such a way that you can’t be quite sure whether ultimately the sisters adore each other or despise each other, because they spend half of their time adoring (and the other half despising) one another. Like other Glass novels, this one is well-written, employing alternating narrators, and shows careful attention to narrative that spans time and lifetimes. You can easily become lost in Clem and Louisa’s lives.