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Book Reviewed by:A richly layered novel of love, ambition, and duplicity, set against the storied seascape of Newport, Rhode Island.
A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest - the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress's diamond necklace - launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune; a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences; an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder; and, in Newport's earliest days, a tragically orphaned Quaker girl imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.
In The Maze at Windermere Gregory Blake Smith weaves these intersecting worlds into a brilliant tapestry, charting a voyage across the ages into the maze of the human heart.
By situating each set of characters squarely in history, Windermere succeeds in delivering a full-bodied portrait of the evolution of our very definition of status and what it really means to make it in the New World...continued
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(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
The Windermere estate where the contemporary arm of The Maze at Windermere is set, is modeled after one of the historic Newport mansions, Chateau-sur-Mer. Until the Vanderbilts' Breakers mansion came on the scene in the late nineteenth century, the Chateau was the most palatial estate in Newport known for its Victorian architecture and wallpapers and stenciling.
The Chateau hosted many large-scale events including an annual country picnic known as the Fete Champetre, a fictionalized version of which is detailed in the novel. It is believed that these lavish parties cemented the advent of the Gilded Age in Newport. The Italianate-style villa was first built for a China trade merchant, William Shepard Wetmore. His son, George ...
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Jane Hamilton, author of A Map of the World and The Excellent Lombards
The Maze at Windermere is thrilling. This novel restored my faith and made me laugh out loud. It's rare that a novel comes along that is broad ranging, so very funny, profound, provocative, literary, and page-turning, and also word perfect. I went right back to the beginning when I'd finished, marveling again at the radiant mind of Gregory Blake Smith.
