The Morgesons

The Morgesons is a magnificently strange book that takes the conventions of the 19th-century coming-of-age novel & turns them inside out. It comes so close to being a deliciously cosy, quasi-gothic, read that you find yourself wondering whether you're imagining the peculiarities-- & perhaps they are only the natural consequences of transplanting this sort of novel into an American setting, where instead of sheepfolds & Anglican churchiness, barren Cape Cod coastline and cold Calvinism are the order of the day. Obsession with inheritance & the family line & that terrible 19th century question: what should a woman do? runs through the book, whose coldness occasionally gives way to flaring episodes of violence and passion.