It's been two years since the tragic death of Alena, curator at the Nauk, a cutting-edge art museum on Cape Cod. At the Venice Biennale, Bernard Augustin, the Nauk's wealthy, enigmatic founder - to whom Alena had been closest confidante and muse - offers the position to an aspiring young curator from the Midwest.


It's been two years since the tragic death of Alena, curator at the Nauk, a cutting-edge art museum on Cape Cod. At the Venice Biennale, Bernard Augustin, the Nauk's wealthy, enigmatic founder - to whom Alena had been closest confidante and muse - offers the position to an aspiring young curator from the Midwest. It's the job of her dreams, and she dives at the chance.
Just as quickly, she finds herself well out of her depth. The Nauk echoes with phantoms of the past - a past obsessively preserved by the museum's staff - and the newcomer's every move mires her more deeply in artistic, erotic, and emotional entanglements. When recently discovered evidence calls into question the circumstances of Alena's death, shattering secrets surface, putting to the test the loyalty, integrity, and courage of our heroine - who remains nameless, like the heroine of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, the inspiration for this provocative and spellbinding tale.
'So eerie and elegantly suspenseful that I could see myself rereading it, the way I reread Rebecca every few years or so.'Maureen Corrigan, NPR Books
' A faithful, patient reimagining of Daphne du Maurier's novel . . . Alena is also a brilliant take-down of the self-serious art world.'The New York Times Book Review
'One on the most delicious novels of the year . . . Books rarely are as dishy, clever and elusively charming as this one.'Popmatters