The Children

The 30-something daughter of a famous novelist looks back on her traumatic Vermont childhood in the eerie and assured adult debut from YA author Albert (The Hazel Wood). Guin and her older brother, Ennis, now an artist, spent six years in an old house in the woods after moving there from New York City. Their mom, author Edith Sharpe, cared more about her fictional characters than her own children, and their dad dedicated himself to seducing young women who wandered into his orbit. Guin, adrift since Edith died in a fire when she was 11, is now publicizing a sanitized, ghostwritten memoir, cashing in on the enduring popularity of Edith’s fantasy series, which was inspired by Guin and Ennis. When Guin learns that Ennis, whom she hasn’t seen since the night of the fire, has made an art installation entitled Mother, she decides to attend the opening, which looms on the calendar for much of the novel until a climactic scene at the gallery. Albert evokes the power Edith’s work holds for those who grew up reading it, such as the “misfit kids” who preferred to live in its world, and she tantalizes with suggestions that the Sharpe family might have supernatural powers. The fantastical material complements the fairy tale quality of the pastoral Vermont setting, where “summer felt like a myth, then a creeping tide.” Even more intriguingly, Albert explores the potentially destructive role of art on its makers, subjects, and consumers. It’s a sensuous delight. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (June)