Genuinely satisfying, heart-shaking novels combine an absolute narrative authority with an apparently effortless style. You question nothing, savor every phrase and nuance, live willingly within their pages from the first word to the last…. ‘Trompe L’Oeil‘ is one such book… There’s a bright elasticity to Reisman’s prose that only adds to [the] sense of possibility…. Rendered here, you feel, in startling and almost painterly form is life itself … This novel doesn’t just ‘trompe’ the ‘oeil,’ it reinvents it.
—New York Times Book Review
[W]ith shades of The Ice Storm and Revolutionary Road, Reisman offers a poignant
portrait of a family undergoing a gradual, permanent transformation.—Publishers Weekly
An eloquent exploration, from several perspectives, of one family’s life following unimaginable loss.
—Booklist
A realistic and gorgeously written story…—Library Journal
In Trompe l’Oeil Nancy Reisman has created something amazing and mysterious: a portrait of a family that is also a portrait of how that family lives in the aftermath of grief. With wonderful skill and intelligence she shows us the Murphys over more than two decades as both parents and children finally step into their own lives. Their journey, the portraits of their journey, are deepened by Reisman’s vivid sense of place and framed by her exquisite descriptions of paintings. This is a beautiful and deeply satisfying novel.
—Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Nancy Reisman’s mesmerizing Trompe l’Oeil is itself a magic trick. A dead child resists all erasure, while the most substantial-seeming family dissolves. Houses vanish when one’s back is turned. Carefully charting the contours of absence, in prose as wise as it is beautiful, Reisman shows us that loss is a presence, another way to trick the eye — and the heart.
—Susan Choi, author of My Education
What I have always admired about Nancy Reisman’s writing is how absolutely gorgeous it is, and in Trompe l’Oeil her writing astonishes me even more. She writes about the weight of loss with beauty and honesty and grace. Simply a beautiful novel.”—
—Ann Hood, author of An Italian Wife
Trompe l’Oeil is perfect for book clubs because it offers so much fodder for discussion: How do we define ‘fault’? When does a house change from being a home to being a trap? Is it inevitable that children born after the death of a sibling will be considered mere replacements for the one lost? Nancy Reisman, in this gentle, tragic novel, makes the reader feel as one with the Murphy family—living, grieving, falling apart—their trajectory inevitable. Or is it?
—Georgia Court, Bookstore 1 Sarasota
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