Multi-generational saga, a Tiffany link, and a cast of characters that some have said is “women’s fiction” as if that’s an insult instead of a saving grace.

This is definitely an odd book. I don’t quite know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. I also don’t mean that in a bad way. Lisa Gornick has crafted a completely unique novel that isn’t like anything else I’ve come across. She has a highly original voice, and her characterizations read as authentic and easy to root for. If you’re looking for a good summer book, then I’d recommend this one! Just go into it knowing that it’s a bit odd, which again...isn’t always a bad thing.

Well I expected this to be a rather straightforward dual narrative story, half Tiffany time and half old lady reminiscing. That it was not. There was a lot of stuff in between about broken families and mistakes and facing impending death (via old age, illness leading to hospice care, and death penalty). It was a lot darker and more intense than I was expecting, which made me feel wrong-footed for most of it. However, with the proper expectations (consider yourself warned), it would be much easier to appreciate this deeply contemplative work. My biggest complaint was not understanding why Randall never contacted his sister after leaving home; it was the only character behavior that I found totally inexplicable.

The Peacock Feast by Lisa Gornick is a wonderfully rich historical fiction multi-generational family saga. Told in third person narrative, the story focuses on Prudence O’Conner Theet, born in 1912, to Irish immigrant parents who were servants to Louis Comfort Tiffany, the famous glassmaker. It is through Prudence that we view the happenings in each family and the events as they unfold through 101 years until her death in 2013.

Three women figure prominently in the book: Dorothy Tiffany (daughter of L.C. Tiffany) who, while older than Prudence and of a different class, always took a liking to her and often spoke with her; Prudence; and Grace, the granddaughter of Prudence’s older brother Randall who left the family when Prudence was nine years old. As the story unfolds, we see that there are many similarities among these women, despite the differences in their ages and circumstances, and that each has similar regrets.

Grace appears on Prudence’s doorstep a few days after her 101st birthday, startling Prudence when she says she is Grace O’Conner and believes she is the granddaughter of Prudence’s brother Randall. Prudence welcomes her with open arms, and the two remaining members of four generations of their family begin to know each other and share their stories. And what fascinating stories they are!! The writing goes back and forth between past and present time but flows so naturally that it didn’t distract or confuse this reader.

Wonderfully deep and complex characters make this book a joy to read. I recommend it highly!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sara Crichton Books for allowing me to read a copy of this fascinating book in exchange for an unbiased review.

The Peacock Feast is a historical fiction novel about a young, strong and intelligent woman and her struggle in a society made for men. Prudence, whose parents worked for Louis Tiffany at his estate in Oyster Bay, has a lot of memories from things most young women her age would never have dreamed of. Going back and forth in two time points 100 years apart, the story shows us her life and struggles.

This was quite interesting to read, The characters were in-depth and detailed. However, at times it felt like descriptions were getting too long, and details were becoming too thorough. All in all, it was a good and interesting read, although it wasn't exactly about L. Tiffany, as one might have expected, but about a family that used to work for him.

I was lured into this book by the mention of Louis Comfort Tiffany, but I’m afraid that it was too women’s fiction for me. The book was about a married couple who worked for Tiffany. I didn’t care about this family and their saga. I was also put off by the author’s writing style which kept switching between present and past tense. And then there were all those convoluted sentences, especially when delivering irrelevant details, for example: “That she’d traveled all the way to Oyster Bay to see Dorothy in what had been her mother’s plain wedding dress (a dress befitting the marriage of Dorothy‘s mother, a woman who at thirty-five had been presumed a spinster, to a widower) and to then be served a breakfast not very different from what might be on her own table Easter morning.” and “As Randall correctly intuited, particularly receptive to this fresher style was Mrs. Cecelia Brown, an elegant tall woman who has a child had summered in the south of France with an aunt who did taken her for dinner with Matisse in Collioure, had married into a Chicago railroad family, and was now a mistress of a nine-bedroom mansion with dizzying views of the bay not yet marred, as she would later lament, by the Golden Gate Bridge.” I made it just past the 50% point on the book and gave up. I doubt that I would read anything else by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

1. The cover of this book is ridiculously beautiful.

2. This is a multi-generational family epic that I love reading this time of year. I curl up and just live the lives of the families and this was no different that previous books of this genre. The Peacock Feast is the story of the tangled web of the Tiffany, yes the lamps, family. Outlandish, a show off and very particular, we meet Tiffany and the people that surround him.

Prudence is the daughter of Tiffany's gardener. She has lived her life without her brother Randall until Randall's granddaughter finds her as she nears 100 years old and together they piece together their family story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

So well written and readable. Across the many families involved, decisions and their outcomes affect so many people in this book. From the mansion of the Tiffany family to death row Texas, secrets kept hidden create a family portrait crossing generations, affecting lives in multiple ways. Exceptional writing, and recommended.

This historical novel revolves around Prudence, the daughter of the gardener on the Louis Tiffany estate in Oyster Bay. It has many details and covers the period from near the end of WWI to present time when Prudence, now 101 years old, begins remincing after she meets the granddaughter of her long-estranged older brother.

This book is described as a sweeping family drama and it is certainly that and more. The pacing of the book allowed the author to provide us details of the various venues covered in the book allowing us to feel like we were there with the characters.

If you love historical novels, family sagas spanning many decades, or just a good story, this book is for you.

Family sagas can encompass so many feelings, so much emotional turmoil, and so much questioning whether you have made over the course of a lifetime, the right decisions.

In The Peacock Feast we learn of the webs of the Tiffany Family and the stories of one group of people who worked for them. Tiffany was garish, wealthy, and use to having things exactly how he wanted them. He had a definite affinity for peacocks and had many strolling his grounds. He even went so far as having a peacock feast one year inviting the male denizens of the time and dressing children in peacock feather and even a peacock head. No women were included at this feast because Tiffany demanded decorum and the presence of women denied that from happening.

This man used to getting everything he desired. He decided he wanted a piece of beach in Oyster Bay to go with his home, Laurelton Hall, and had his workmen dynamite the area to change the flow of the ocean. With this action, he set in motion a series of events that were both tragic and heart rending.

We are introduced to Prudence, daughter of the Tiffany gardener and one of the maids, the youngest child of three children. As Prudence, now nearing one hundred meets her great niece, Grace, for the first time, the events of Prudence and Randall, her long lost brother begin to unfold. Grace presents Prudence with a box with keepsakes from her long lost brother and so starts a telling of the stories of both Prudence and Randall across the decades.

This was a tragic story of lives that traversed from Europe to America, and from New York to California. It spoke of how our lives so easily fall into a pattern and many times the choices we make, seem to be destined for us, as if we are fitted into a mold of destiny.

Told with compassion and the goal of letting us really see these characters, Ms Gornick created a story of intense wealth and abject sadness and heartbreak. Decisions we make, things we do, make a life that can be full and worthwhile, but can also make one of poignancy and woe.

Recommended to those who so enjoy a family saga that spans the century.
Thank you to Lisa Gornick, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for a copy of this moving novel.
This book is due to be published on February 5, 2019

Prudence, the main character in Lisa Gornick's new novel, is 101 years old. Her earliest memories are of her father, Randall, working in C.T. Tiffany's garden in Sag Harbor. When Tiffany blew up part of the promenade to prevent the public from access to 'his' beach, the family moved to a mansion off Fifth Avenue.

Both of Prudence's parents worked for Tiffany in the mansion, and Prudence grew up there until a tragedy occurred and she and her family moved to a small tenement. Prudence's mother worked for Wanamaker's sewing pieces for custom made furniture. Prudence picked up the trade while sitting at her mother's side. Prudence had a skill for drawing and ambitions to go to Art School where she was accepted. But her future was not to be where she wished it could be and she found herself married to a wealthy man, Carlton Theet. At first, things were beautiful with travels to Europe for their honeymoon. Over the years, their relationship deteriorated as Prudence grew into a woman who realized her life was not what she wanted. Carlton chose everything including what she wore, what she did with her time, and whether they would have children.

Prudence lived a long life but not one of freedom where she felt she could breathe deeply of fresh air and beauty, work to do that she would love, and a family she would enjoy. Her story goes back and forth over the years of her childhood and then that of Grace and Garcia, her great-niece and nephew. Grace visited Prudence in her apartment on West End Avenue. And this visit helped Prudence begin to put the pieces of her life story together, complete with surprises she didn't know were secretly held in a compartment of mind that she closed when she was a child.

The Peacock Feast is a fascinating look at a very long life of a woman who went from being the child of servants to living a life of wealth and ease, but not happiness per se. It is an excellent novel for history buffs.

I received an advanced copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

The pace of this novel is slow, almost meticulous. We are moving at Patience’s pace. She is a very old woman, and moves very slowly, weighted down by age and by her memories. She looks out of her NYC window and sees not just the New Jersey skyline, but the skyline as it has changed over the last 70 years. Patience, who has never had children of her own, is visited, almost as a miracle, by her great-niece, Grace, the daughter of her brother’s son. These two women with names of virtue, explore their shared past, and come to understand the quote of Dorothy Tiffany: “We must shoulder failing those we love.”
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A time slip book spanning 100 years with multiple points of view...so up my alley. Throw in the Tiffany family and hellllo let me read this book.

The focus in on Prudence and her life. We see what forms it and how she is a woman trapped in a time where women were expected to do as told and follow along especially in terms of their spouses. Being able to read how she got to that point and how the book comes to be in 2013 was a good read. Her parents work for Louis Comfort TIffany and the title is a reference to a male only party he had in 1914. The man and his family will have some impact on Prudence and her family.

Prudence is living in New York in 2013 and over one hundred years old. She thought she had no more family and is surprised to find out she does. Grace, her great-niece, weaves in the parts of Prudence's family history that Prudence did not know she had. No spoilers but this certainly causes Prudence to think back on her past and how it created the woman she became.

Grace is a hospice nurse and what brought her to that career is also covered.

This book had a LOT of information to help build the characters and not once did I feel any of it was unnecessary. It all helped to form the characters and make for an enjoyable book that also made you think. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

The Peacock Feast, amply named after the most famous of Tiffany lamps, is not a story about Louis Tiffany, rather it's about a family who worked for him. Gardner, housekeeper, and siblings Prudence and Randall. These siblings haven't seen each other in a very long time. Grace, a relation to Randall, visits Prudence one day with some mementos. Of course, there is a story here. It's a story spanning nearly a hundred years. A tale of survival, grief, regret and acceptance. Choices made in a lifetime cannot be undone, even through regret or unhappiness. I really found this story sad. I enjoyed it, but I hated the sadness. The characters are loveable and charming. The ending is satisfying. This is a great read for fans of historical fiction. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a lovely novel, and I highly recommend it! Great writing, great characters, and great story. I am going to make a point of reading more novels by this author.

'Most of Prudence’s past is shrouded with the shapes of events no longer distinct, or faded with the emotional color gone.'

Prudence O’Connor is three weeks past her one hundred and first birthday when she receives a call from a stranger named Grace, whose grandfather Randall O’Connor, she believes, is Prudence’s long absent brother. Prudence and Randall’s Irish immigrant parents worked as servants for Louis C. Tiffany, artist and designer best known for his stained “Tiffany” glass. When her brother flees after hitting their drunk father, promising to write, they receive one letter that he is living with Charlie, a boy who had ‘got himself out of this hell hole’ for San Francisco. Prudence spends her days visiting her father on the job, in awe of the beautiful work all about the home, drawing pictures of all that delights her. Her passion endears her to a Lady, Mrs. Dorothy Burlingham whose fond memories of Prudence’s father gives her pause, for the father she knows, mean when with drink, seems nothing like the man she describes, one who kindly listens to a sad girl ‘prattle on’ about her woes.

The title, Peacock Feast is based on an event that Tiffany hosted for ‘men of genius’; painters, publishers, architects, transported by private train from New York to Oyster Bay ‘to view the spring flowers on his estate’. Serving Peacock and suckling pig, Tiffany’s daughters followed by his grandchildren were part of the procession dressed in Grecian gowns. The eccentricities of the rich don’t stop there, after all he once dynamited the breakwater to prevent public access to his beach. Prudence remembers, though two years old at the time, watching from behind a pillar seeing Dorothy as part of the procession, miserable, unhappy. Also of Laurelton Hall she recalls her memory of Dorothy’s wedding to Robert Burlingham, as she watched lifted in her father’s arms. How could she have guessed that she would one day become daughter-in-law to invited guests, far above her own parent’s social class. With no children of her own, discovering that she has a grand-niece reveals all the mystery behind everything that happened in her brother’s life decades past when he left home for good at the tender age of fourteen, never to be seen again.

The story encompasses a massive chunk of time, and though both siblings did well for themselves, tragedy followed them. Strange that now, at her lives end, all of Prudence’s questions will finally be answered. Grace is a twin, she informs Prudence, her brother Garcia and she were left on their grandfather’s doorstep, their drug addicted father, Leo unable to be still long enough to care for his own children. At fifteen Leo ‘turned wild’, the year was 1963. He met Jacie, and fell in love hard, it isn’t long before she is pregnant. Their mother suffering her own mental health issues, never shows up to take her children in hand. With the help of housekeeper Angela, Randall has no option but to raise Leo’s children. Grace and Garcia learn their grandfather’s story of survival, including enduring the great depression. Too, Grace comes to unravel what happened to drive her once promising, bright father to self-destruction. That love can be suffocating, that fear can make you cling so hard that it can kill it, may well be the force that came between Leo and Randall.

Grace works as a hospice nurse, seeing the most humbling and heartbreaking losses people suffer due to illness, disease and age. Here she finds Prudence on the edge of death too, and it seems death is a close relative in her own family. Prudence regrets so much about her own life, having ‘done little harm,’ she has to admit she’s ‘done little good’ either. Once accused of extortion after her mother received payments from her father’s fall and death, it is a lucky thing with the ‘milk train’ coming to a stop that she has worked hard on her own steam. Thanks to the scholarship she earned, and the recommendation of her teacher provided at the School of Fine and Applied Art, she finds herself with a job offer. She begins to work as an assistant to one Harriet Masters, working more as a ‘personal shopper’ for rich ladies than designing beautiful enchanting creations. It is through this less than fulfilling job she meets Carlton, who makes the connection between her and Dorothy Burlingham, who was so fond of the gardener’s daughter at her family home that she delivered a watercolor to her, Prudence. The ‘refined man’ falls in love with her, Carlton her first lover. When she falls pregnant, he makes a demand of her, that will remain one of her biggest acts of cowardice ever.

Grace and Prudence have in common their unending love for their siblings.

The novel goes into Freud, beginning with Dorothy’s connection to the family, psychiatric hospitals, prison, open land, exposes the vast divide between social classes, but it’s the explosion on that beach so long ago, that Prudence witnessed, felt rock her, that echoes through time until secrets break free. Memory is a slippery eel, Prudence remembers more than most at her ripe old age, but there are shadows over one of the biggest incidents of her life, one she hasn’t been allowed to remember.

It is a heavy read, a story about how family embraces and breaks you. People that disappear sometimes have a stronger hold on you than what is present. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: February 5, 2019

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sarah Crichton

Lisa Gornick's The Peacock Feast is a multi-generational historical fiction novel with a deep and universal theme that can speak across the generations. Gornick's characters take the burden of the past into their futures, cutting them off from a full life. Suppressed memories are as constricting as those which consume us; neither allow us to risk a full life.

The Peacock Feast was Louis Tiffany's "performance art" dinner for a select group of top-tier society men, every minutia controlled by him. Prudence is in her nineties and the event is her earliest memory, watching the parade of girls carrying the cooked fowl redressed in their gaudy feathers. She recalls her hand over the mouth of a small boy.

Prudence's parents were employed by the Tiffany family at Laurelton Hall, the Oyster Bay home Tiffany designed. Her father was his gardener and her mother worked as a housekeeper. After Tiffany blew up the breakwater that created what he believed was his private beach, and which the town insisted was for all, Prudence's family left. Her older brother Randall couldn't stand their father's drinking and ran away from home, never to see Prudence again.

Prudence made a career, married a man because she'd be crazy to say no to, and later in life fell in love but was afraid to say yes. Now, in her last months, Randall's granddaughter Grace has sought Prudence out and together they piece the mystery of their family's history and the traumatic incident that divided them.

The story skips back and forth in time between generations; a family tree on your bookmark may be helpful to keep track of them. Reoccuring choices appear in the family, generations unwittingly mirroring each other.

Gornick has given us a beautifully written book, complex with characters' stories across four generations. For all the sorrow and heartbreak in her character's lives, we are left with understanding and hope.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A big thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

The plot/characters:
Prudence is able to perform a life review and find validation through Grace. We hear the stories about Tiffany and the satellite characters in his life; quite an unflattering portrayal but he was such a bizarre character! We learn about Randall's side of the family from Grace: the adventures of his dysfunctional son, the also slightly dysfunctional grandchildren, and all of those family members. Honestly there were too many characters, I had to draw a family tree and make a separate list of who was who. It was hard to keep track of Tiffany's friends, cohorts, and employees the most. I also don't feel like bringing the Freud's in did much for the story. There is no grand overarching plot that I can discern but the themes carry the book across generations.

The Themes:
The grand theme throughout the book could be adapting to and accepting grief, death, and reconciliation with your life choices. These themes appeared across and united all of the story lines. Grace, the great-niece and hospice nurse, was the shining star of this book for me due to her breathtakingly accurate descriptions of her career. Even as an ICU nurse I can appreciate her ongoing assessment of everyone's health. I would almost think Gornick is or was a nurse! Outside of Grace, the book had solid but generally unimpressive writing and descriptions.

Other Random Bits and Wrap up:
It was very cool that Anais Nin got a mention. My dad reviewed a few of her books and had ongoing correspondence with her. She was a lovely and under-hyped writer. I thought Anna Freud was going to uncover Prudence's memory but she really had no main role. Overall the book did have some interesting parts, but other times it was hard to stick with, depending on what story lines one enjoyed most.

I gave it 3/5 stars and would recommend to fans of general fiction, any design gurus, quite a few nurses would enjoy it as well! Thank you again to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy!

The review can be seen in full on my blog at https://onenursereader.wixsite.com/onereadingnurse-1/home/the-peacock-feast-by-lisa-gornick

I received this from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

The Peacock Feast opens on a June day in 1916. Nearly a century later, Prudence receives an unexpected visit at her New York apartment from Grace, her (unknown) great niece.

I couldn't get a grasp on this, it was all over the place and I never felt truly engaged in the story.

2☆

This is a lush and intricate imagining of the divergent lives of siblings Prudence and Randall, born the children of Irish immigrant servants on a wealthy NY estate. A hint of family mystery unfolds gently over a century through poignant stories of class, opportunity, dignity, dependence, and moral courage. Their choices are often tinged with regret as well as a sense of inevitability. Gornick's writing is compelling and reflective, holding a mirror from which we cannot and do not want to look away.