All Is Beauty Now

June 26, 2017
In 1962, a well-to-do family in Brazil suffers the fallout at home and in their social orbit when 20-year-old daughter Luiza wades into the ocean and never emerges. The Maurers have it all: a lovely home and a stylish social circle, but the trauma of the restless Luiza’s disappearance reveals deep pain that lies below the surface. Luiza’s beautiful mother, Dora, whom Luiza very much resembles, acutely feels the loss of her first child but never gives up hope of her safe return; Luiza’s younger sisters, the intense Magda and sensitive Evie, are left adrift in the wake of her disappearance; and Luiza’s father Hugo’s bipolar disorder gets worse. Told from multiple points of view, even Luiza’s, this debut infuses the fierce familial love with the bitter ache of dreams lost and secrets kept. Faber’s swirling, dreamlike prose paints a wildly beautiful Brazil. Readers will lose themselves in this delicately wrought, heartbreaking tale.

June 1, 2017
The loss of a beloved daughter, presumed drowned, exposes the secrets and heartache behind the facade of a perfect-seeming family.It's 1962 and the Maurer family's existence in Confederacao, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, is glamorous and privileged. Brilliant, mercurial Hugo, a Canadian employed by BrazCan, feels liberated by "this golden town"; his beautiful wife, Dora, with her wealthy Brazilian roots, is at home here; and their three daughters enjoy the beaches, their own lush garden, and the care of servants. But the Maurers' life is not quite as flawless as it seems. Charismatic Hugo is subject to extreme mood swings: sometimes he's overflowing with impulses, ideas, and energy, while at others times he's cowed and despairing. Luiza, his eldest daughter, with whom he has a special bond, finds herself taking on some of the adult role of caring for him, while Dora feels guilty for diminishing her child's "capacity to live a normal, starry young-girl life." As Hugo's illness deepens, the family's finances oblige them to move back to Canada, but then, just before their departure, Luiza goes missing from the beach. Faber's pensive, psychologically probing debut is tireless in its mapping of the Maurers' geometry, tracing each family member's feelings from a point a year later, after Luiza's symbolic funeral. The Maurers' plans to leave the country have resumed, but then come rumors that Luiza might not have drowned after all. This slow, late plot thread, though welcome, isn't quite enough to energize a story so preoccupied with the delicate inner fretwork of psychological perspectives. Notable for its lovely prose and melancholy empathy, the book is slowed by its narrow focus and circularity. There's a peaceful conclusion waiting, though, for readers happy to stay the course. At its best, a finely observed consideration of how mental illness impacts an entire family.

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July 1, 2017
There were many witnesses at the beach to the moments just before Luiza disappeared. But no one actually saw her vanish under the surface of the sea. Suddenly she was just gone. The loss of this sensitive, peculiar young woman, who had kept her father grounded during his fits of mania and bouts of depression, leaves a deep void in her family. They had been planning to leave Brazil for Canada, the father's homeland. Instead, they must grapple with life without Luiza and the cracks now being exposed beneath the polished veneer they had presented to the world. In her debut novel, Faber offers tantalizing glimpses of Copacabana high society during the golden age of the 1960s, leavened with the private pain and seedy poverty that lie beneath. She delves deeply into the interior lives of Luiza's parents and her two younger sisters, carefully exposing the challenges each one faces in the wake of Luiza's disappearance. Richly realized and filled with tantalizing secrets, this novel offers a dramatic look at one family's struggle to survive.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)