Evgenia Citkowitz's first novel (following a short story debut, Ether) is a captivating, mysterious tale of family, love and grief. The Shades centers on Catherine and Michael, a year after their teenage daughter, Rachel, died in a car wreck. Their son, Rowan, insisted on going away to boarding school immediately after losing his sister.
Catherine has withdrawn to the country, to the apartment in a subdivided manor where she and Michael had hoped to retire. Meanwhile, Michael continues to work and live in the city, where he fails to find comfort in architecture--his passion--and tries to reconcile himself to his troubled marriage.
The estate where Catherine has retreated is a focal point--this historic house whose design elements enchant her husband, but whose empty rooms, with both children gone, haunt her. When a young woman shows up at the door saying she used to live there, Catherine grasps at her like a drowning woman to a lifeline. But this visitor, whom Catherine calls simply "the girl," may not be what she seems.
Catherine's career as a tastemaker in the fine arts, and Michael's in architecture and real estate, provide just a few of the many threads that combine for this story's lush tapestry. Strangely, the plot involving the mystery girl is less sharply executed, less beguiling than the details that render this family so realistically. The meticulous portrayal of characters, the flaws and struggles in their relationships and a gloomy, atmospheric tone are the greatest accomplishments of The Shades, a novel rich with pathos and agony, but also simple humanity: love, loss, grief, hope and deceit. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia