Great House

Great House follows multiple narratives across time and continents, connected by an imposing wooden desk with nineteen drawers. A novelist in New York writes at this desk for decades after receiving it from a Chilean poet, while other characters in London and Jerusalem grapple with their own connections to this mysterious piece of furniture. The novel shifts between several primary characters, including the American writer, a man caring for his dying wife in London, and an Israeli antiques dealer reconstructing his father's study. Their individual stories span from the 1940s to the present day, touching on events like the Holocaust and Pinochet's regime in Chile. The desk serves as both a physical link between the characters and a repository of secrets, loss, and inherited trauma. Its nineteen drawers hold different meanings for each person who encounters it, creating a complex web of relationships and histories. The novel explores themes of inheritance, memory, and the objects we use to anchor ourselves to the past. Through its intricate structure, Great House examines how personal and historical losses reverberate across generations and geographical boundaries.

Readers describe Great House as a complex, layered novel that requires focus and patience. Many note the poetic quality of Krauss's writing and the profound exploration of loss, memory, and inherited trauma. Readers appreciated: - The interconnected storyline structure - Rich character development - Elegant prose style - Deep emotional resonance - Jewish history themes Common criticisms: - Difficult to follow multiple narratives - Too fragmented and disconnected - Slow pacing - Unresolved plot threads - Depression-inducing tone Review Scores: Goodreads: 3.7/5 (19,000+ ratings) Amazon: 3.9/5 (280+ reviews) Sample reader comments: "Like solving a puzzle where you don't see the full picture until the end" - Goodreads "Beautiful writing but exhausting to read" - Amazon "The separate stories never quite came together for me" - LibraryThing "Required multiple readings to fully appreciate the connections" - BookBrowse

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🔷 The novel's central object - a massive desk with 19 drawers - was inspired by a real piece of furniture that belonged to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda 🔷 Nicole Krauss wrote "Great House" in the same Brooklyn home where her then-husband Jonathan Safran Foer was simultaneously writing his novel "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" 🔷 The book's title comes from a reference to Yochanan ben Zakkai, who established a center of Jewish learning in Yavne after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE 🔷 The novel was a finalist for both the 2010 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women's Prize for Fiction) 🔷 One of the novel's storylines was inspired by Operation Condor, a campaign of political repression carried out by South American right-wing dictatorships in the 1970s