Hell-part mystery, part domestic meditation, part horror story-is a brilliantly eerie novel in which three households coexist in a single restless vision: a dollhouse; a dysfunctional family in 1950s Philadelphia; and the cottage home of Edwina Moss, a nineteenth-century expert on domestic management.
While the inhabitants of the dollhouse are powerless to shape their destiny, the four members of the Philadelphia family dedicate themselves to mutual vigilance, as if it might be possible to forestall disaster. Meanwhile, Edwina Moss concedes domestic control to the imagination and, finally, to the spirit of the great culinary artist and chef to Napoleon, Antonin Carême.
Something Is Wrong in the House...Something Is Wrong in the House......For I Was a Girl Not Quite as Other Girls...Something Is Wrong in the House...June 23, 1982, Edwin D. Wakes From...Sooner or Later the House Will Get...The Evening Bulletin Says She Was...The Wise Man Builds His House on Rock...The Mother, Meanwhile, Hectically Pushing...Though Another Way of Putting This Might Be......And Yet with What Cunning Devices the World...Has It Stopped Raining?...The Town of X Is Situated on the Same...Only It Didn't Rain, After the Storm It..."...And Why Not Admit That You're Sick to Death of It..."Philadelphia, St. John's Eve, 1982...It Is Unfit to Eat, Madam, Says the Butler...Having Played the Westminster Chimes...And Mightn't I at Last Leave Behind...What Does the Mother Do All Day...The Fine Arts Are Five in Number...Which Is Why It Isn't a Good Idea...Yet How Could Benny Gold Say Such a Thing?...When a Little Girl Is Given a Doll...The Mouse Is Crouched in the Living Room Corner...Outside the Sun Has Risen High above the Arbor...When the Knock Comes They're at the Molded...In the Night Nursery Bolts of Moonlight...Though I Am Sorry to Have to Tell You...
