In her small upstate New York town, Molly Howe is admired for her beauty, poise, and character, until one day a secret is exposed and she is cruelly ostracized. She escapes to Berkeley, where she finds solace in a young art student named John Wheelwright. They embark on an intense, all-consuming affair, until the day Molly disappears-again. A decade later, John is lured by the eccentric advertising visionary Mal Osbourne into a risky venture that threatens to eviscerate every concept, slogan, and gimmick exported by Madison Avenue. And much to John’s amazement, one of the many swept into Osbourne’s creative vortex is the woman who left him devastated so many years before.
In a triumph of literary ingenuity, Jonathan Dee weaves together the stories of this unforgettable pair, raising haunting questions about the sources of art, the pain of lost love, and whether it pays to have a conscience in our cynical age.
In a triumph of literary ingenuity, Jonathan Dee weaves together the stories of this unforgettable pair, raising haunting questions about the sources of art, the pain of lost love, and whether it pays to have a conscience in our cynical age.
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Reviews
Intelligent and provocative.
(A) masterpiece.
A vastly impressive book. . . . Dee has given us a full rich cultural chronicle.
Refreshing and creative.
Palladio shocks, delights and invigorates.
Pure literary entertainment . . . Palladio has narrative drive and energy, dramatic characters and conflicts, easygoing prose . . . humor and drama.
a beautifully constructed labyrinth which switches viewpoints, locations and decades without every losing tension or clarity.
Dee unites a gripping love story with an ambitious novel of ideas.