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Knopf
May 2010
On Sale: May 4, 2010
336 pages
ISBN: 1400040604
EAN: 9781400040605
Hardcover
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Fiction
A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that
traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from
the 1880s to World War II. Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in
post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew
Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their
small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a
brilliant astronomer—a genius who, according to the local
paper, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls
the match “a piece of luck.” Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry, yet
Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their
train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon
she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves
precious little room for anything, or anyone, else. When
personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop
the country, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World
War II approaches, Andrew’s obsessions take a different,
darker turn, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life
she has so carefully constructed. Private Life is a beautiful evocation of a woman’s inner
world: of the little girl within the hopeful bride, of the
young woman filled with yearning, and of the faithful wife
who comes to harbor a dangerous secret. But it is also a
heartbreaking portrait of marriage and the mysteries that
endure even in lives lived side by side; a wondrously
evocative historical panorama; and, above all, a masterly,
unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.
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