Memory House

Marlane Frack was once the darling of the literary world. Now her career has stalled, her creativity has dried up, and her husband expects her to look after him rather than chase inspiration she no longer feels. Then a mysterious chauffeur turns up and offers her a way out. He takes her to Memory House, a secluded retreat for artists whose best years are behind them: writers, painters, musicians and others who have staged their own deaths. Each of them has chosen to be remembered at their peak rather than watch themselves decline. Marlane joins them by faking her own death. The house sits in a remote and beautiful landscape, but inside it is a maze of secrets and murmured conversations, where time behaves strangely and creativity is both a gift and a torment. Marlane meets a varied set of residents, a few of them familiar from her old life, and all of them wrestling with their own artistic demons and with one another. As reality and imagination begin to blur and her past starts appearing in startling forms, she can no longer tell what is real and what is the house's doing. Can Marlane find the redemption she is after, or will the house swallow her creative spirit whole? This novel by Elaine Kraf, a cult feminist author, is the last book she wrote before her death and has never been published until now. It examines what it costs a woman to be a creator, the power of art to change a person, and the long search for a sense of self.