Staff Pick
Crowley's sprawling family saga is fantasy maximalism and it's wonderful. We follow average guy Smokey Barnable as he travels on foot to the Edgewood estate and marries into the odd Drinkwater family. What follows is a miasma of malevolent magical bargains, faerie theosophists, star-crossed lovers, fated tarot readings, dysfunctional family, and the elusive future. Dense, romantic, and tragic by turns, Crowley's beautiful prose is a bonus. A fantasy masterpiece! Recommended By SitaraG, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
John Crowley's masterful Little, Big is the epic story of Smoky Barnable, an anonymous young man who travels by foot from the City to a place called Edgewood — not found on any map — to marry Daily Alice Drinkawater, as was prophesied. It is the story of four generations of a singular family, living in a house that is many houses on the magical border of an otherworld. It is a story of fantastic love and heartrending loss; of impossible things and unshakable destinies; and of the great Tale that envelops us all. It is a wonder.
Review
"Ambitious, dazzling, strangely moving." Washington Post Book World
Review
"The kind of book around which cults are formed, and rightly so. There's magic here." Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Review
"A gorgeously written picararesque family saga...[A]rguably Crowley's masterpiece. When 'you'll love this' isn't enough, I have proceeded to claim (as I'm claiming here) that Little, Big is an important American novel that bears comparison to such works as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Nabokov's Ada." James Hynes, Boston Review
Review
"Little, Big seems to me as miraculous as Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll: it is as if the book had always been there...as though John Crowley found it, and brought it home with him and to us." Harold Bloom
About the Author
John Crowley lives in the hills of northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters. He is the author of ten previous novels as well as the short fiction collection, Novelties & Souvenirs.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by John Crowley