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TROMPE L'OEIL

Nancy Reisman

Nancy Reisman's hauntingly beautiful second novel brings together visual, psychological, historical, and geographical perspectives on family, loss, and grief.

Trompe l’Oeil follows the Murphy family as it deals with the aftermath of the sudden death of four-year-old Molly while the family is vacationing in Rome. Upon their return to the States, the Murphys take refuge in their summer home on the Massachusetts coast, isolating themselves from their friends and family and living there full-time despite the long winters and damaging storms. The ripple effects of Molly’s death and the grief that ensues force the parents, Nora and James, to examine the contradictions both in their marriage and in the ways they and their children perceive their worlds. While the older children struggle with how to express their grief, the two daughters born after Molly’s death struggle with her unacknowledged yet hovering presence and how to relate to a sister they never knew. As Nora and James grow apart and the Murphy children move into adulthood, the novel explores various family legacies, the ways those legacies persist, and the ways they might be transcended. Alongside and in conversation with the characters’ unfolding narratives, the novel offers images of Rome, of Renaissance and other artworks—such as paintings of Mary Magdalene--as well as descriptions of the family house and shifting perceptions of the house, which has come to mean something different for each family member.

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Book Published 2015-05-12 by Tin House

Comments

What I have always admired about Nancy Reisman's writing is how absolutely gorgeous it is, and in TROMPE L'OEIL her writing astonishes me even more. She writes about the weight of loss with beauty and honesty and grace. Simply a beautiful novel.

Trompe l'Oeil is perfect for book clubs because it offers so much fodder for discussion: How do we define 'fault'? When does a house change from being a home to being a trap? Is it inevitable that children born after the death of a sibling will be considered mere replacements for the one lost? Nancy Reisman, in this gentle, tragic novel, makes the reader feel as one with the Murphy family—living, grieving, falling apart—their trajectory inevitable. Or is it?

A realistic and gorgeously written story.

Reisman’s sense of language and lyricism are sharp… With shades of THE ICE STORM and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Reisman offers a poignant portrait of a family undergoing a gradual, permanent transformation.

An eloquent exploration, from several perspectives, of one family’s life following unimaginable loss.

Genuinely satisfying, heart-shaking novels combine an absolute narrative authority with an apparently effortless style. You question nothing, savor every phrase and nuance, live willingly within their pages from the first word to the last.... Nancy Reisman’s second novel, “Trompe L’Oeil,” is one such book. Read more...

In Trompe l'Oeil Nancy Reisman has created something amazing and mysterious: a portrait of a family that is also a portrait of how that family lives in the aftermath of grief. With wonderful skill and intelligence she shows us the Murphys over more than two decades as both parents and children finally step into their own lives. Their journey, the portraits of their journey, are deepened by Reisman's vivid sense of place and framed by her exquisite descriptions of paintings. This a beautiful and deeply satisfying novel.

This is a novel that finds beauty and resolution by testing how real life and literary art are like filmmaking. Reisman can sound like Virginia Woolf, but her experimentation also places her in the company of contemporary film directors like Terence Malick and Richard Linklater. Read more...

Nancy Reisman's mesmerizing TROMPE L'OEIL is itself a magic trick. A dead child resists all erasure, while the most substantial-seeming family dissolves. Houses vanish when one's back is turned. Carefully charting the contours of absence, in prose as wise as it is beautiful, Reisman shows us that loss is a presence, another way to trick the eye—and the heart.