The mother of all things
Call Number
- FICTION LAND (CEN, OSH)
Edition
First edition.
Publication Information
New York : Pantheon Books, [2024]
Physical Description
317 pages ; 25 cm
Summary
"Ava, an adjunct art-history professor whose research and writing have been stymied by her life as a wife and mother in LA, joins her Hollywood film producer husband on a summer shoot in Bulgaria. During the demanding production schedule, Ava is mostly solo-parenting their young son and 13-year-old daughter, who is on the cusp of rebellion and sexual knowledge. In a chance encounter in Sofia, Ava reconnects with her fierce feminist mentor from college and is drawn into a circle of women who are reenacting Greco-Roman female rites of initiation based on the Eleusinian Mysteries. Ava's own research into those rites comes to life through Astra, a parallel mother in 5th-century BC Athens, whose story counterpoints and dovetails with Ava's, as Landau explores the eternal stages of womanhood across time."--