Night Journal

A brilliantly imagined, lavish, and transporting novel of a young womans search for the truth about her familys mythic past Meg Mabry has spent her life with her back turned to her legendary family legacy. In the 1890s her great-grandmother Hannah Bass composed starkly revealing diaries of her life on the southwestern frontier, first as a Harvey Girl at the glamorous Montezuma Resort in New Mexico and later as the wife of brilliant, and often-absent, railway engineer Eliott Bass. A generation later, Hannahs daughter, Claudia Bass, renowned historian known to all as Bassie, staked her academic career and reputation on these vibrant accounts, editing and publishing them to great acclaim. Thanks to the journals and to the industry Bassie created around them, Hannah would forever be one of the most romantic and famous figures of southwestern history. Meg, howeverBassies granddaughterfinds the family lore oppressive. When an excavation on the old Bass family property beckons a now-elderly and viper-tongued Bassie back to the fabled land of her childhood, Meg only grudgingly consents to accompany her. Determined not to live under the shadow of her ancestry, Meg has never even read the journals. But when an unexpected discovery casts doubt on the history recorded in their pages and harbored in Bassies memories, Meg finally succumbs to the allure of her great grandmothers story and ventures even deeper into Hannahs life to unlock the mystery at the journals core. Reminiscent of Carol Shieldss "The Stone Diaries" and the novels of Anita Shreve, "The Night Journal" is an enthralling tale in which Indian ruins, majestic desert hotels, and the hardship and boldness of frontier life fitseamlessly with a modern-day story of coming to terms with loss, family secrets, and shattering truths that lie shrouded in memory.Crook, Elizabeth is the author of 'Night Journal ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780670034772 and ISBN 0670034770.