Mark thy calendar …

A week after Halloween, departed souls will still be moving among us -- but not in a creepy way. At the Musehouse reading on November 7, two celebrated local novelists, ELISE JUSKA and RACHEL PASTAN, will look at different ways a single person’s passing can leave a lasting imprint on a wide group of people.

In THE BLESSINGS, Elise Juska’s fourth novel, the group in question is a large Irish Catholic clan from Northeast Philadelphia. The one who dies is the beloved John, the oldest of his siblings, father of two, uncle of the college-age Abby who opens the novel. When Abby is away from home, we learn immediately, “she’ll miss her family; when she’s with her family, she’ll miss herself.” This sort of familiar, insoluble conflict plays out throughout the novel, which is told from multiple points of view as various generations of the family work through grief, loneliness and jealousies to come to terms with what John meant to them. In selecting THE BLESSINGS as one of the best books of the year, the Philadelphia Inquirer said that "Juska's moving, multifaceted portrait of the Blessing family gleams like a jewel."

Rachel Pastan’s third novel, ALENA, mirrors the Daphne du Maurier classic Rebecca in plot structure and theme. The setting, though, is not an ancient country manse but an ultra-contemporary art museum, where the lingering ghost is the beloved former curator who drowned mysteriously two years before. The young protagonist is hired to replace this irreplaceable presence, and before long she is enmeshed in emotional, artistic and erotic intrigues she can’t fully understand. Pastan mingles the gothic tale of past secrets with a deft skewering of the pretensions of the contemporary art world. ALENA, said Maureen Corrigan in her book review on "Fresh Air," is "so eerie and elegantly suspenseful that I could see myself rereading it, the way I reread 'Rebecca' every few years or so."

As always at Musehouse readings, there will be a discussion time with the authors, book signings, and complimentary snacks. We begin fairly promptly at 7:00. Our venue is the Chestnut Hill Gallery, 8117 Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. For more info., see our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/982994981763298/.