Mrs. Osmond /

PRAIRIE FIRES: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser. (Metropolitan/Holt, $35.) This thoroughly researched biography of the "Little House" author perceptively captures Wilder's extraordinary life and legacy, offering fresh interpretations of Western American history along the way. EMPRESS OF THE EAST: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire, by Leslie Peirce. (Basic, $32.) Peirce tells the remarkable story of Roxelana, a 16th-century Christian woman in Suleiman the Magnificent's harem who achieved unprecedented power and changed the nature of the Ottoman government. MRS. OSMOND, by John Banville. (Knopf, $27.95.) Banville's sequel to Henry James's novel "Portrait of a Lady," faithful to the master's style and story, follows Isabel Archer back to Rome and the possible end of her marriage. THE REPORTER'S KITCHEN: Essays, by Jane Kramer. (St. Martin's, $26.99.) In a delectable collection of culinary profiles, book reviews and reminiscences, the longtime New Yorker correspondent shows how she approaches life through food and food through life. FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD, by Louise Erdrich. (HarperCollins, $28.99.) What if human beings are neither inevitable nor ultimate? That's the premise of Erdrich's fascinating new novel, which describes a world where evolution is running backward and the future of civilization is in doubt. THE DAWN WATCH: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, by Maya Jasanoff. (Penguin Press, $30.) Conrad explored the frontiers of a globalized world at the turn of the last century. Jasanoff uses Conrad's novels and his biography in order to tell the history of that moment, one that mirrors our own. THE DAWN OF DETROIT: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits, by Tiya Miles. (The New Press, $27.95.) This rich and surprising book begins in the early 18th century, when the French controlled Detroit and most slaves were both Native American and female. THIS IS THE PLACE: Women Writing About Home, edited by Margot Kahn and Kelly McMasters. (Seal Press, paper, $16.99.) For these writers, home is where we are most ourselves - our mother tongue, our homeland, our people or just one person. JAMES WRIGHT: A Life in Poetry, by Jonathan Blunk. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $40.) Blunk illuminates the influences and obsessions of the ecstatic, troubled Wright and reveals him to be a lot like his poems: brilliant, intense and equally likely to soar or faceplant. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

*Starred Review* What nerve it takes to pick up the thread of a masterpiece by the most discerning anatomist of the human psyche, the virtuoso spinner of sinuous, stealthily devastating sentences; yet who better to audaciously continue the story of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady than Man Booker winner Banville? The conclusion of James' novel poses the tantalizing question: After learning the shocking truth about her oppressive, loveless marriage and leaving Rome, will dutiful Isabel Archer Osmond return to her monstrous husband? Banville dramatizes her ruminations and surprising course of action via deftly choreographed and painfully revelatory sparring sessions between the distraught though increasingly strategic Isabel and her allies (including her friend Henrietta Stackpole) and enemies (her cold-blooded spouse and his poisonous cohort, Madame Merle) in grandly evoked settings in London, Paris, and Florence. At once crisply witty and deeply empathic, Banville deftly pairs scorching social irony with laser-precise insights into the cage of sexism and the trap of wealth, the betrayal of innocence and trust, and the allure of revenge. With viciously mannered dialogue and breathtaking psychological metaphors (Isabel feels like a hearse carrying the warm little corpse of her own heart), he dramatizes Isabel's quest for higher moral ground only to slyly leave his novel's ending as enigmatic as its inspiration. Banville's gamble, daring us to compare his sequel to James' classic, pays off deliciously.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist

Banville's sequel to Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady is a delightful tour de force that channels James with ease. The rich and measured prose style is quintessentially Jamesian: the long interior monologues perfectly capture the hum of human consciousness, and the characters are alive with psychological nuance. Readers join James's heroine where his classic left her; Banville's Isabel Archer Osmond is now a sedate, proper matron, who bitterly rues her marriage to deceitful Gilbert Osmond. She retains her high-minded principles, however, and has determined to live with her guilt at having ignored the advice she had received against marrying him. Gilbert is a cruel, arrogant man who condescends to Isabel in cutting language, lives off her fortune, and demands her complete loyalty. Having defied Gilbert when he forbade her to leave their home in Rome to hurry to her dying cousin's bedside in England, Isabel feels the first stirrings of freedom. Almost capriciously, she withdraws a large amount of money from the bank in the hopes of having it free to spend as she sees fit without the interference of her husband and his malign mistress, Madame Merle. After Isabel's redoubtable lady's maid, Staines, discloses some astonishing news, the narrative takes a suspenseful turn. Some of the other characters from The Portrait of a Lady-including Isabel's aunt, Mrs. Touchett; Pansy Osmond, Gilbert's daughter; and American journalist Henrietta Stackpole-appear again. It is clear the freedom and social clout that money bestows in the 19th-century settings of London, Paris, Florence, and Rome, all described in lush detail. As in James's novel, Banville incorporates a wonderful sense of irony; the result is a novel that succeeds both as an unofficial sequel and as a bold, thoroughly satisfying standalone. 50,000-copy announced first printing. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In Booker Prize winner Banville's bold continuation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, Isabel Archer Osmond probes the extent of her resolve after the death of her beloved cousin Ralph Touchett. To attend Ralph's funeral in England, she leaves her home in Rome under threat from her husband that doing so will forever strain their marriage. She also departs with the knowledge that her stepdaughter Pansy is not the child of Gilbert Osmond and his deceased first wife but rather the offspring of Gilbert and the scheming Madame Merle. This revelation moves Isabel to set in motion an audacious plan to regain her freedom from Merle and Osmond. Along the way, several missteps expose her fragility and the limits of her worldly knowledge. Ultimately, Isabel's optimism, tempered with wisdom earned from experience, equips her to achieve a formidable victory over her antagonists, but at a price. VERDICT Banville's brilliant 17th novel uncannily evokes James's limpid prose, deft plotting, and finely limned characterization to offer a credible sequel to one of the greatest novels ever written. Banville's genius is -unquestionable.-John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A sequel to The Portrait of a Lady that may well delight fans of that Henry James masterpiece and leave other readers bemused by the contemporary work's 19th-century sensibility. When last seen in Portrait, Isabel Osmond, nee Archer, has left London to returninexplicably or inevitablyto Rome and her psychologically abusive husband, Gilbert. In this sequel, Isabel delays that confrontation for almost two months as she seeks counsel from friends and ponders her shortcomings, dead marriage, and the sort of freedom she desires. There's a comically appalling vegetarian dinner with a suffragette acquaintance, featuring "uncompromising greens," a late-night talk-a-thon with her bluestocking friend, Henrietta Stackpole, and a soiree at the Paris home of an American heiress, where Isabel encounters nemesis Serena Merle, her husband's partner in more crimes than James set forth. Isabel also withdraws "a very large sum" in cash from her London bank and carries it about in a leather satchel. She misplaces it and retrieves it, only to have Banville (The Blue Guitar, 2015, etc.) conceal its whereabouts for much of the book until it comes to serve the overarching theme of freedom. The disappearing cash is one of the subtler devices (cliffhangers end several chapters) he uses to bring some tension to this slowly unfolding drama, in which Isabel's Grand Detour before the reckoning with GilbertLondon, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Florence, Romeoffers most of the action: boarding a train, ferry, or horse-drawn carriage. Fans of Henry will find the writing persuasively Jamesian in its voice and diction, its syntax less labyrinthine. Fans of John should deem it marvelously Banville-an in its observations, humor, and insightthough they may wonder at this literary diversion by a writer who already plies the pen name Benjamin Black. A sequel that honors James and his singular heroine while showing Banville to be both an uncanny mimic and, as always, a captivating writer. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.