The Carriage House

Written by Louisa Hall

Narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

For more than thirty years, William Adair' s faith in life was based on two indisputable principles: the exceptional good looks and athletic talents of his three daughters and the historical status of his family in their Philadelphia suburb. After suffering a stroke, William wakes up in his hospital bed to realize that his world has collapsed: his children are less extraordinary than he had remembered and his family' s notable history has been forgotten. William' s daughters-- all tennis champions in their youth-- are in decline. Having lost their father' s pride, the three sisters struggle to define themselves. Their mother, whose memory has started to fade, is unable to help them recall the talented girls they used to be. For three generations, a carriage house has stood on the Adair property. Built by William' s grandfather, it was William' s childhood refuge and a sign of the family' s prominence. Now held captive by a neighbor due to a zoning error, the house has decayed beyond recognition and may even be condemned. Rallying to save their father, Diana, Elizabeth, and Isabelle take on the battle for the carriage house that once stood as a symbol of their place in the world. Overcoming misunderstandings and betrayals both deep in the past and painfully new, each of the Adairs ultimately finds a place of forgiveness. The Carriage House is a moving, beautifully wrought debut novel about the complex bonds of siblings, about rebuilding lost lives, and about the saving grace of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490632995

Louisa Hall

Louisa Hall is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Iowa and the author of the critically acclaimed novels Reproduction, Trinity, Speak. Her poems have been published in The New Republic, Southwest Review, and other journals, and she is the recipient of grants from Yaddo, Macdowell, and The T.S. Eliot Foundation. She lives in Iowa City with her family.

Reviews for The Carriage House

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Whenever I write a review I think about the many different opinions people have when reading a book. This is one of those books that will probably not appeal to everyone, but it was one I really liked. It is being compared to Jane Austen's "Persuasion" but I read that book so long ago I don;t remember all that much about it in order to compare the two. William Adair, the father, is the sun that everyone, his three daughters, his wife who is disappearing under the weight of her early onset Alzheimer's and the woman who he wanted to marry once long ago. It is about the weight of seeing oneself only through someone else's eyes and when they are disillusioned, losing ones self and having to figure out all over again who you are and what you are meant to be doing. It is about the impact of a mother who is not really able to be there any more for her husband nor her daughters and the effect this has on the family. It is also about a carriage house which comes to mean everything and then alternately nothing at all. Wonderfully written, with some very flawed but real characters, and a family that must come to terms with what they are and where they will go from here. A family that I am sure many of us can relate to. Really looking forward to what this author will write about in her next novel.