The Garden Party

Praise

“This vital novel offers delicious echoes of Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster, and a touch of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—but its magic is unique. The Garden Party is beautiful and full of life.”—Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs and The Burning Girl

“Lyrical and charming, this comedy of errors is a delightful summer read.”—People

“As in British country house novels, stories involving weddings and funerals provide ideal spaces for all the action and emotional turmoil to happen under one roof. Mazur’s enchanting new novel does just that. . . . Sharp but generous.”—National Book Review

“Moments of delightful perception proliferate.”—The Washington Post

“Beautifully written and bracingly intelligent.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This shimmering novel stands apart from those with similar themes owing to the mercurial feeling conjured by the author’s elegant prose, as if the Cohens’ garden has an enchantment all its own.”—Library Journal

“Witty . . . Readers will be charmed by this stylish ensemble novel, which expertly dissects family dynamics over the course of one fateful day.”—Publishers Weekly

“The descriptions of the garden are lush, and [Grace Dane] Mazur does a fine job of evoking a summer evening as well as juggling her many characters. Give this to readers who enjoy a comedy of manners.”—Booklist

“This sharply observant novel is rollicking and resonant.”—In Touch
 
“Vivid and melodic . . . a rich and lovely book.”—Vox

“The Garden Party is a beautiful and compelling story of love in all its prismatic colours. Grace Dane Mazur is that rare writer who makes domesticity alluring even as she brilliantly presents its dangers and complexity in sharp, tart language that is so enjoyable to read. Lightness, darkness, longing: all skillfully contained here. I loved this book, for it reminded me of the pleasure that reading a good book can bring and the sadness that comes over me when I am done.”—Jamaica Kincaid

“In her feast of a novel, delicious with secrets and longings and the mischief of both angels and demons, Grace Dane Mazur gives the reader the best seat at the table on a most fateful night. As two families stumble toward union, playing their various parts, only we can see into each of their hearts and minds, learning—thrillingly—what they mean to each other, and what’s been left behind.”—Christopher Castellani, author of All This Talk of Love

“This is a wonderful book. Set at a wedding rehearsal dinner in a garden full of secrets, the story lets us watch time spilling out its chances on an intensely thoughtful cast of characters. And it leaves the reader with the remarkable sensation that happiness is not in contradiction with intelligence.”—Joan Silber, author of Fools and Ideas of Heaven

“An overgrown garden, two families with nothing in common, six couples in various stages of love and dissolution, a bride and groom determined to disrupt their own wedding, a pond of giant fish. In this unique and absorbing novel, Grace Dane Mazur gives us that ‘essential thing’ Virginia Woolf taught us to look for in fiction, but we don’t often find.”—Charlotte Rogan, New York Times bestselling author of The Lifeboat and Now and Again