The Mineral Palace

Fülszöveg

I
"'Hie Mineral Palace is daring and brutal in its revelation oi lives distorted by past injury and present denial. Heidi Julavits has written a dark Faulkneriaii tale. Redemption in this rich first novel is in the writer's exacting and beautiiul
execution of hard truths."
- -.Vi.mjreen Howard
J he year is
1954, and liena Duse Jonssen, the fnidwestern wife of a doctor, and young mother of a newborn, lias an outwardly comfortable existence unaffected by the (}reat Depression.
But she is plagued with superstitious ritual and the buried remnants of a tragic girlhood, and when she and her husband move to Pueblo, Colorado—a withering mining town afflicted by dust storms and social extremes of wealth and poverty—her life begins to unravel. Nothing can thrive in the bleak environment, not Bena and Ted's marriage, and not their baby, who Bena believes, despite her husband's constant assurances, is in failing health.
To distract lierself, Bena accepts a part-time position as a... Tovább

Fülszöveg

I
"'Hie Mineral Palace is daring and brutal in its revelation oi lives distorted by past injury and present denial. Heidi Julavits has written a dark Faulkneriaii tale. Redemption in this rich first novel is in the writer's exacting and beautiiul
execution of hard truths."
- -.Vi.mjreen Howard
J he year is
1954, and liena Duse Jonssen, the fnidwestern wife of a doctor, and young mother of a newborn, lias an outwardly comfortable existence unaffected by the (}reat Depression.
But she is plagued with superstitious ritual and the buried remnants of a tragic girlhood, and when she and her husband move to Pueblo, Colorado—a withering mining town afflicted by dust storms and social extremes of wealth and poverty—her life begins to unravel. Nothing can thrive in the bleak environment, not Bena and Ted's marriage, and not their baby, who Bena believes, despite her husband's constant assurances, is in failing health.
To distract lierself, Bena accepts a part-time position as a society reporter for the local paper, following the activities of the tow^n's elite club women—women such as Reimer Lee Jackson, with her plans to restore a crumbling monument to the mining industry, the Mineral Palace, to its former grandeur. Soon Bena finds herself drawn to the seamier side of Pueblo, to a run-down saloon, where she befriends Red Grissom, a taciturn rancher, and to the lurid hails of a rooming house, where she encounters a pregnant prostitute, iMaude Hewitt. The question of the unborn baby's paternity leads Bena to uncover not only the sexual corruption on which an entire town is founded, but also the lies that enclose her own marriage and her role as mother. As the two women's lives converge, in ways that shock, Bena is compelled to return to the decaying arcliitecture of the Mineral Palace. I lere she is forced to confront her most terrify-mg secret, and struggle with the dark intersection between love and destruction.
0008
Heidi Julavits has published short fiction in Esquire, Story^ Zoetrope, McSweeney's, and The Best American Short Stories 1999. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
"The haunting, evocative, and engrossing story of a young woman facing down her own demons and those of the fractured town around her, out on the Dust Bowl plains of the 1930s. Heidi Julavits is a superbly skilled and unsparing writer."
—Kevin Baker
"Heidi Julavits writes with fearless and loving intensity—with compassion and wisdom fierce enough to bear her people's suffering. The Mineral Palace is intricately layered, lush with images, brimming with characters whose lives
seem real." -MELANTE Rae ThoN
Jacket design and photograph adaptation by Honi Werner Jacket photograph © Tria Giovan/TIB Photograph of the author © 2000 Jocelyn Lee
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