In Mrs. Osmond, his vivid and poignant new novel about a wholly modern woman, John Banville imagines a sequel to Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. “He is one of the great living masters of English-language prose,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. Claire Messud’s new novel, The Burning Girl, is a hypnotic coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends and a complex portrait of female adolescence. “She has the imagination, the craft and the understanding of human nature to write about anything she chooses,” wrote the Chicago Tribune.
Introductions by Colum McCann and Liesl Schillinger.