Glassworks
A Novel
by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
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Pub Date May 16 2023 | Archive Date May 07 2023
Bloomsbury USA | Bloomsbury Publishing
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Description
A gorgeously written and irresistibly intimate queer novel that follows one family across four generations to explore legacy and identity in all its forms.
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction and VCU Cabell First Novel Prizes
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Apple, and Good Housekeeping
“So deeply imagined and immersive that reading it felt like an invitation: Shatter what needs to be shattered and mold your story from what's left . . . I needed this novel, both for its cathartic devastation and the hope found in its wreckage.” ?The New York Times
“Kaleidoscopic in its sweep, without sentimentality or showiness . . . Glassworks warrants our attention and our admiration. With its gripping turns and subtle prose, it is a near-perfect debut.” ?Washington Post
In 1910, Agnes Carter makes the wrong choice in marriage. After years as an independent woman of fortune, influential with the board of a prominent university because of her financial donations, she is now subject to the whims of an abusive, spendthrift husband. But when Bohemian naturalist and glassblower Ignace Novak reignites Agnes's passion for science, Agnes begins to imagine a different life, and she sets her mind to getting it.
Agnes's desperate actions breed secrecy, and the resulting silence echoes into the future. Her son, Edward, wants to be a man of faith but struggles with the complexities of the mortal world while apprenticing at a
stained-glass studio.
In 1986, Edward's child, Novak-just Novak-is an acrobatic window washer cleaning Manhattan high-rises, who gets caught up in the plight of Cecily, a small town girl remade as a gender-bending Broadway ingénue.
And in 2015, Cecily's daughter Flip-a burned-out stoner trapped in a bureaucratic job firing cremains into keepsake glass ornaments-resolves to break the cycle of inherited secrets, reaching back through the generations in search of a family legacy that feels true.
With "gripping turns and subtle prose" (The Washington Post), Glassworks is a sophisticated debut that holds you in its thrall until the last page.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781635578775 |
| PRICE | $28.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 368 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Karen K, Reviewer
This was beautifully written, and I cared about all the stories. It was hard to read about so many generations being miserable and getting progressively poorer, but I think there was a bit of hope at the end.
Reviewer 1104234
Glassworks is a stunning multi-generational family story that examines the fragility of connection and emotion through the motif of glass. Beginning with Agnes's story in 1910, the novel traces one family's tragic past, a tragedy that revolves so much around the aches of longing and loving and feeling insufficient even when so much love is there. It is a painful and beautiful consideration of humanity's need for connection.
Wolfgang-Smith's prose is gorgeous, full of sentences that made me want to pause and soak them in, and the characters in each time period were complex and different and worthy of the space they embodied in the novel.
This was a wonderful debut! Thanks to Bloomsbury for the galley!
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