Observatory Mansions: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of Observatory Mansions: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) Saturday, August 1 2009.

• Once the Orme family’s magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling apartment complex, home to an eccentric group of misfits. One of them is Francis Orme, who earns his livelihood as a living statue. When not practicing “inner and outer stillness,” Francis steals the cherished possessions of others to add to his private museum. The other tenants are equally as odd: his mother and father, who haven’t interacted in years; a man who continually sweats and cries; a recluse who prefers television to reality; and a woman who behaves like a dog. When Anna Tapp arrives among them she stirs their souls, bringing long forgotten memories to the surface–and arousing fears that this new resident intends to provoke a metamorphosis. Reminiscent of Beckett, Ionesco, and Millhauser but startlingly original, Observatory Mansions is also unexpectedly beguiling. Upon its publication in England, it was a literary sensation, and John Fowles called it “easily the most brilliant fiction I’ve seen this year.”

Shelfari edited the contributors of Observatory Mansions: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) Sunday, July 26 2009.

• Added a contributor: Edward Carey: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Observatory Mansions: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) Friday, July 17 2009.

• I wore white gloves.