Lady of the House
Look Inside
About
Faced with the sudden death of her husband Pearce, fifty-two-year-old Annie is forced to confront her past through a series of memories from her youth in Georgia. Her brother Cat, her parents, her grandmother, her first love Danny Haygood, and her daughter Maggie have all played significant roles in shaping Annie’s life.
While Annie has faced the deaths of her mother and grandmother, nothing has prepared her for the loss of her husband. In trying to cope, she distances herself from Cat and his wife Lily, but memories help her reconnect with her brother. As she searches through her past, Annie grapples with her unresolved feelings for Danny and the mystery of why she left him behind. By the novel’s end, Annie must confront her newfound solitude and begins to embrace her role as the lady of the house—a role she has never fully inhabited until now.
“In Elberfeld’s debut novel, a newly widowed, 50-ish woman
looks back at significant moments in her life, reflected through
the prism of memory and dream. ... Elberfeld creates a sense of
ominous significance in small events, as memories often turn
to dreams or nightmares. ... A lyrical exploration of memory,
grief and choice.”
“Elberfeld’s novel is at once an evocation of southern child-
hood and the record of a quest for meaning. ... In some ways
Elberfeld reminds me of Jane Austen, for she carves careful
detail in a tiny compass. In other ways she reminds me of
Marcel Proust, for she meditates on the past: on the past as
lived but also—inevitably—on the past as it might have been
lived.”
