The Double Life of Liliane

“Mixing family lore, historical events, and photographs, this autobiographical novel creates a portrait of the writer as a young woman...enlivening.”—New Yorker

“A mosaic of storytelling that is both poetic and absorbing.”— NPR.com

With The Double Life of Liliane National Book Award winner Lily Tuck delivers “the most beguiling work of [her] career” (The Millions)—an astonishing and riveting autobiographical novel in the manner of W.G. Sebald and Karl Ove Knausgaard, replete with photos and documents. Following the child Liliane as she comes of age between two very different worlds—that of her German movie producer father and her beautiful, artistically talented mother—the preternaturally imaginative Liliane uncovers the stories of family members as diverse as Moses Mendelssohn and Mary Queen of Scots, piecing together vivid histories, through both World Wars and across continents. This is an intimate and dynamic coming of age portrait of the writer as a young woman.

Lily Tuck is the author of five novels, including I Married You for Happiness; Siam, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The News From Paraguay, winner of the 2004 National Book Award; two collections of stories; and a biography. Her work has been translated in over a dozen languages and has appeared in The Best American Essays and The O. Henry Prize Stories.