The Great House

　　一張古董書桌，串起四段不同的生命故事。

　　二十五年來，女作家娜迪雅都在同一張古董書桌上寫作，書桌因此成為她生活的重心。直到有一天，她不得不放棄這張書桌時，她的人生因此瀕臨崩潰……。

　　道夫，一位與父親維持著緊張關係的年輕男子，終於遠走他鄉。直到母親過逝後才回家，但在母親的葬禮結束後，他決定留下陪伴年邁的父親……。

　　在牛津大學教授浪漫文學的亞瑟，直到整理過逝妻子的遺物時，才發現她隱藏了一個駭人的祕密，一藏就是五十年……。

　　匈牙利古董商懷茲，不計一切要找回他的家族於二戰期間，被蓋世太保抄家、搶奪的家具及藝術品，特別是一張曾經屬於他父親的古董書桌……。

　　這四段故事交織出豐富的肌理，故事的主角們都曾在生命的某個時期，與這張古董書桌有關聯，不論他們是擁有者，或只是保管者，卻都無法永遠保有它。書桌所代表的不僅僅是愛、說不出口的祕密、失落的年華，更是放不下的回憶。

　　During the winter of 1972, a woman spends a single night with a young Chilean poet before he departs New York, leaving her his desk. It is the only time they ever meet. Two years later, he is arrested by Pinochet’s secret police and never seen again. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers a lock of hair among her papers that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer has spent a lifetime reassembling his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis from Budapest in 1944; now only one item remains to be found. Connecting these lives is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. And as the narrators of Great House make their confessions, this desk comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.

　　本書中譯版《大宅》由天下文化出版。

作者簡介

妮可．克勞斯Nicole Krauss

　　妮可．克勞斯（Nicole Krauss），一九七四年生於紐約長島。史丹福大學、牛津大學畢業，主修文學與藝術史。

　　二○○二年出版第一本長篇小說Man Walks into a room，同年即獲選《洛杉磯時報》最佳好書，「Esquire」雜誌讚其為「全美最佳新秀作家」。二○○五年《愛的歷史》出版，立刻登上英美各大排行榜。她的其他作品刊登於「紐約客」、「Harper’s」、「Esquire」以及《美國最佳短篇小說集》，著作已被譯為三十五種語言。現與丈夫、兩個孩子居住紐約布魯克林。

　　Nicole Krauss is the author of Man Walks into a Room, Great House and the international bestseller The History of Love. Her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.