It Is Wood, It Is Stone

May 15, 2020
As she deals with boredom and isolation after being uprooted to Brazil for her husband's career, the wife of an academic forges interesting, fraught connections with two other women. At the opening of Burnham's debut, lapsed writer Linda is on the brink of leaving her historian husband when he learns that he has earned a visiting professorship in S�o Paulo. Rather than end the marriage, she travels with him, embarking on her own journey of self-discovery. Their university-provided apartment in S�o Paulo comes with a maid, Marta, who cooks and cleans, exacerbating Linda's sense of purposelessness as she wanders the streets of S�o Paulo aimlessly or else sits at home feeling useless. Linda's situation begins to change as she first takes up painting, finally finding a means of personal expression, and then meets Celia, a beguiling theater artist who serves as a vehicle for Linda's self-discovery. Unfortunately, the novel falters slightly at the end; Burnham sets up Linda's dynamic with Marta as an emotionally, socially, and socio-economically complex one that will inevitably lead to some kind of emotional breakthrough, but when it does, it feels forced and clich�d--even a little white savior-ish--and does not ring entirely true. In addition, the novel's ambitious second-person narration becomes grating and strange at times. Nevertheless, the fact that the narrative is addressed to a man--Linda's husband--lends it additional power, transforming it into a sort of feminist rejoinder to patriarchical dismissiveness of domestic work, a document of the unseen complexity of women's lives, no matter how quiet. At its best, the novel is a subtle and adept character study that reveals the power of connections between women. The novel is buoyed as well by Burnham's dreamy prose, with which she conjures memorable images of Brazil. Though the plot is not entirely coherent, specifically when it comes to the development of Linda's relationship with Marta, the author's psychological insight and skill in portraying the multifaceted nature of female friendship make for a compelling read. A transporting debut that deftly probes the complex nature of relationships between women.

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Starred review from June 1, 2020
Burnham’s captivating debut is told in a surprisingly seamless second person. Linda, the narrator, tells her husband, Dennis, about the year the American couple spent in Brazil, after Dennis was awarded an academic appointment at the University of São Paulo. There, after weeks of hapless depression, Linda is invigorated when she meets an enticing woman named Celia (a person who uses “romance as gunpowder”) in a bar. Later, she returns home, giddy with desire for Celia, and destroys Dennis’s favorite suit, the anxious logic of this action meted out by Burnham with painstaking clarity. At her most gawky and strange, Linda is reminiscent of a character out of Clarice Lispector’s oeuvre. Observant and obsessive, Linda feels the pulse of desire (“No matter how steady I trained my mind to be, my body reigned over all”). Throughout is the mysterious presence of Dennis and Linda’s São Paulo housekeeper, Marta, whose competence intimidates Linda. Burnham dazzles by exploring the overlapping circles of need and care though tensions of race, privilege, sexuality, history, and memory. Thanks to Burnham’s precise, vivid understanding of her characters, this stranger-comes-to-town novel has the feel of a thriller as it illuminates the obligations of emotional labor. Burnham pulls off an electrifying twist on domestic fiction. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

July 1, 2020
When Linda's professor husband, Dennis, is offered a prestigious fellowship at a university in S�o Paulo, Linda's life takes a drastically new shape. After spending her twenties in Boston as a freelance writer, Linda moved to Connecticut to care for her dying father. Dennis supported Linda, financially and emotionally, through it all. Now they've landed in high-end university housing in S�o Paulo, replete with a maid, Marta. Initially, Linda doesn't know if she can adjust to having a human being in her employ. Over time, befriending Marta and learning about her upbringing becomes one of Linda's most meaningful experiences in Brazil. Linda explores another profound relationship with her new friend, Carina, a magnetic theatre artist whom Linda can't stop painting portraits of in her spare time. Linda's relationship with Dennis is put on hold while she does some radically necessary self-reflection, and it is not guaranteed their union will survive. With her searing debut novel, dual Brazilian-American citizen Burnham tells a nuanced and thought-provoking story of privilege, desire, and female kinship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)