From the author of the National Book Award finalist The Memory Police: a young man is hired to curate the collection of objects that a wealthy woman has taken from her small town’s deceased, just as a string of violent killings shocks the village.
“From the moment the old woman had first told me about her plans for the museum, I understood this day would come sooner or later. I’d hoped to put it off as long as possible, even wished it might never come at all. But now someone in the village had died.”
When a young curator accepts a job in a small, nondescript town, working with the private collection of a wealthy and imperious old woman, he has no idea what the nature of the museum she wants to create is. He comes to live on her estate, joining a cloistered community that includes the old woman’s adopted daughter, a housekeeper, and a gardener. Weeks pass before his employer finally trusts him enough to show him the pieces she’d like him to build the museum around: stolen objects, each one taken from a person who has died in the town since she was a child. Ranging from the macabre (a mummified dog) to the seemingly mundane (pruning shears), each memento is meant to offer the most vivid representation of the life of its owner.
Putting his questions aside, the curator sorts through the objects, conserving them and recording the stories that the old woman tells about each. But not long after he begins, a series of unexpected and violent deaths occur, including the town’s first murder in decades. And before he realizes it, the curator has become a prime suspect. As he scrambles to try to exonerate himself and escape back to his home, he finds he’s bound more tightly to the museum than he ever could have imagined.
