Fic­tion

Rooms

  • From the Publisher
May 22, 2014

Wealthy, old Richard Walk­er has just died, leav­ing behind his vast coun­try house full of rooms packed with junk, memen­tos, and valu­able pos­ses­sions. But the house is alive and awake, and inhab­it­ed by two ghosts: Alice, a prim and slight­ly repressed exem­plar of the 1920s, and San­dra, a high-spir­it­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the 1960s and 1970s, both once liv­ing res­i­dents at the very same address. Bound eter­nal­ly to the phys­i­cal struc­ture of the home, Alice and San­dra, long-dead, jos­tle for space, mem­o­ry, and suprema­cy with­in the house­’s claus­tro­pho­bic walls, observ­ing the Walk­ers, rem­i­nisc­ing about their lives, and speak­ing through the sounds of the old house: a hiss of the radi­a­tor, a creak in the stairs, a light bulb explodes. And every­one clings to a secret, even the ghosts. In this adult debut, as ele­gant­ly con­struct­ed as it is bril­liant­ly paced, New York Times bestelling author Lau­ren Oliv­er deliv­ers a bril­liant­ly imag­i­na­tive ghost sto­ry that is equal parts sweet, sad, and spooky.

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