Quiet Dell

Description

A chilling, spectacularly riveting novel based on a real life multiple murder by a con man who preyed on widows-a story that has haunted Jayne Anne Phillips since childhood. A Story of Love, Murder and Obsession Chicago, 1931. Asta Eicher, a lonely widow with three children, is thrilled when Harry Powers asks her to marry him, and agrees to travel with him to West Virginia. She and her children are never seen alive again. Emily Thornhill, one of the few women in the Chicago press, is sent to cover their disappearance. Obsessed with trying to find out what happened to the family, her investigations lead deeper into the case, uncovering the terrifying truth behind the tragedy. 'Extraordinary' Observer 'Brilliant' Sunday Times

Jayne Anne Phillips, born and raised in West Virginia, is the author of four previous novels, Lark and Termite, MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine Dreams, and two widely anthologised collections of stories, Fast Lanes and Black Tickets. Lark and Termite, winner of the Heartland Prize, was a Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Prix de Medicis tranger. Phillips is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Bunting Fellowship, the Sue Kaufman Prize and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She is the Distinguished Professor of English and Director of the MFA Programme at Rugters-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. She divides her time between Boston, New York and New Jersey. www.jayneannephillips.com

Superb... A brilliant, beautiful novel * Sunday Times * In a brilliant fusion of fact and fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year... A compulsively readable story * Stephen King * Absorbing and captivating. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian * A powerful and moving novel. -- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent * Quiet Dell has all the elements of a murder mystery, but its emotional scope is larger and more complex. It combines a strange hypnotic and poetic power with the sharp tones of documentary evidence. It offers a portrait of rural America in a time of crisis and dramatises the lives of a number of characters who are fascinating and memorable. -- Colm Toibin An extraordinary book - the best she has written. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *