In My Mother's House A Novel

In My Mother's House is a beautiful, haunting, and expertly told novel about a daughter's obsession to understand her mother's commitment to silence about their family's experiences during WWII Vienna. The story of Elizabeth and her mother Jenny is remarkable for its fullness of details: the pieces of family silver the grandmother mails to Jenny, piece by piece, over the years; Jenny's vivid memories of her uncle's viola d'amore lessons; the smell of the wood floors in the family's Vienna home. It's an emotional story of what is inherited from one generation to the next.

Margaret McMullan is an English professor at the University of Evansville, Indiana, and the author of a previous novel, When Warhol Was Still Alive.

"Graceful...The global catastrophe of the Nazi era we know about. It is the individual, private pain it caused that is skillfully given voice here by Margaret McMullan."--The Boston Globe
"The two narrative threads blend into one harmonious story, proving that while we can leave a country, we can't escape our history." --Entertainment Weekly
"Exquisite. I salute Margaret McMullan's elegantly crafted prose, her beautiful restraint, her emotional honesty, and her storytelling power." --Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait of My Body
"McMullan's voice shines like old silver, polished rich and clear. It's a story of vision and blindness, speech and silence, and the healing that comes from time--it's a book about love."--Beth Lordan, author of And Both Shall Row