Vida Winter is a famed novelist, but her own story is a mystery. She has delighted in tormenting interviewers and would-be biographers, telling tangled, made-up tales and letting them chase ghosts that never existed. But now she is dying and haunted by the memory of one odd young interviewer who begged for the truth and was given one of her knotted lies. She contacts a young woman who is a casual author, who has published a few little pieces and is content to remain assistant in her father's bookshop, and offers to reveal her real story. Margaret, full of her own family secrets and not really wanting to wrestle with another set, reluctantly agrees and soon becomes consumed with Winter's strange stories.

I read this book a couple years ago, having checked it out at the library, and enjoyed it, so when I found this at the library booksale, I picked it up to re-read and Bookcross. I'm reluctant to talk about the plot and it's masterful twists, as it might ruin the engrossing, fairytale qualities of the book. The writing is unusual, but suits the two characters perfectly being restrained, yet very intense; mystic, yet clear and traditional, yet breaking convention. The characters are crafted in a way that means we always see them from someone else's eyes. Neither Margaret nor Vida are comfortable around people and try to distance themselves, viewing everyone they meet as a sort of literary character, and our perceptions end up skewed in the same way.

Added to The Authoress Bookbox

I'm claiming this book from the Authoress bookbox; something about the stack of books on the cover just calls to me {grin}.

Later: Wonderfully atmospheric story, this, with its gradual revelations, its shifts between different views of the past and changing moods of the present, and overall with the love of books. Narrator Margaret describing her first taste of Vida Winter's work was the perfect example of falling in love with an author! And her conversations with Vida about "stories" resonated with me - "Life is compost," says Vida, with every experience capable of being transformed into something that will nourish new ideas... And then there's that little thought-experiment about whether or not to shoot the person who's burning the last existing copies of great classics - what would I do? Oh, and the "prescription" when Margaret's ill - The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, "Take ten pages, twice a day..."

Parts of the story reminded me of The Secret Garden, with the wandering through long-unused rooms and the unfolding of family secrets, though here it's with a more adult viewpoint.

I admit that Margaret's fixation on her long-lost twin did not resonate with me particularly, but I appreciated the way it knitted into the rest of the story, and was touched by the resolution.

[There's a TV Tropes page for the novel. And there's a 2013 TV-movie adaptation - which I haven't seen yet, though I usually prefer to read the book first anyway.]

I left this book propped up on a window ledge in the entrance to Chili's (285 DW Hwy) at around 2; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released as part of the 2014 D for December release challenge. ***

*** Released as part of the 2014 What's In A Name release challenge, for the embedded "Al" in the title. ***

*** Released as part of the 2014 Movie release challenge. ***