Synopses & Reviews
The Manikin is not a mannequin, but the curious estate of Henry Craxton, Sr. in a rural western New York State. Dubbed the “Henry Ford of Natural History,” by 1917 Craxton has become Americas preeminent taxidermist. Into this magic box of a world—filled with eerily inanimate gibbons and bats, owls and peacocks, quetzals and crocodiles—wanders young Peg Griswood, daughter of Craxtons newest housekeeper. Part coming-of-age story, part gothic mystery, and part exploration of the intimate embrace between art and life,
The Manikin is compulsively readable and beautifully written.
Review
"What Scott does with this richly atmospheric setting and unusual material is nothing less than literary wizardry. "-Nicholas Basbanes
"Compulsively readable and an original, stunningly imagined, beautifully written work of art. "-Houston Chronicle
"A beautifully written and nostalgic evocation of human loss and change "-The Washington Post Book World
Review
“One reads
The Manikin in a kind of fever....It is packed with extraordinary bounty.” —
Newsday“Scotts prose is sensitive and beautifully crafted. She writes with subtlety, compassion and humor, and her characters are both eminently human and touched with magic and mystery.” —The Washington Post Book World
“The wit, the magical prose and the daring devices of Scotts writing create an enchantment....Readers of The Manikin will remember Scotts novel as a landscape of time, and will remember that her soundings of the depth of our natures are as accurate and revealing as Thoreaus measurements of Walden Pond.” —The Nation
Synopsis
The Manikin is not a mannequin, but the curious estate of Henry Craxton, Sr. in a rural western New York State. Dubbed the Henry Ford of Natural History, by 1917 Craxton has become America's preeminent taxidermist. Into this magic box of a world filled with eerily inanimate gibbons and bats, owls and peacocks, quetzals and crocodiles wanders young Peg Griswood, daughter of Craxton's newest housekeeper. Part coming-of-age story, part gothic mystery, and part exploration of the intimate embrace between art and life, The Manikin is compulsively readable and beautifully written.
Synopsis
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
About the Author
Joanna Scott is the author of seven books of fiction, including the novels
Tourmaline and
Make Believe, and the story collection
Various Antidotes. She is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Award, and lives with her family in Rochester, New York.