Martin and Lora Brier, with three young children, possess all the trappings of a perfect life . . . except Martin is having yet another affair. Without warning, he abandons the family for his mistress and a new house on the other side of town.
Set in a prosperous midwestern town in the 1950s, Fatherland is a story about the effect of convenient lies and discovered truths. While Martin's abandonment throws up new difficulties for bewildered Lora, a housewife, who must now find a way to nurture and provide for herself and children, it unleashes a swirl of emotions in their daughter, Josie, who struggles to come to term with his absence. Fatherland follows Josie from this fateful event, across many decades and milestones and through the phases of her tenuous, emotionally fraught relationship with Martin--and the way she begins to move beyond their shared past.
Written in Victoria Shorr's inimitable clean, spare prose, Fatherland is a powerful, layered novel of a family in the aftermath of deception.
Back Jacket
Praise for Victoria Shorr
Mid-Air: Two Novellas
"Victoria Shorr is a conjurer of the highest order, artfully creating apposite tales of family ruin and family success in her wry, insightful, and elegant prose."
-- Lily Tuck, author of Sisters
"A minor masterpiece . . . a witty and moving portrait of American life."
-- Wall Street Journal
"Beautifully written, their characters almost too full-bodied for the demanding, disciplined novella form."
-- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
