Synopses & Reviews
One sunny morning in 1969, near the end of her first trip to Miami, twenty-six-year-old Frances Ellerby finds herself in a place called Stiltsville, a community of houses built on pilings in the middle of Biscayne Bay.
It's the first time the Atlanta native has been out on the open water, and she's captivated. On the dock of a stilt house, with the dazzling skyline in the distance and the unknowable ocean beneath her, she meets the house's owner, Dennis DuVal—and a new future reveals itself.
Turning away from her quiet, predictable life back home, Frances moves to Miami to be with Dennis. Over time, she earns the confidence of his wild-at-heart sister and wins the approval of his oldest friend. Frances and Dennis marry and have a child—but rather than growing complacent about their good fortune, they continue to face the challenges of intimacy and the complicated city they call home.
Stiltsville is the family's island oasis—until suddenly it's gone, and Frances is forced to figure out how to make her family work on dry land. Against a backdrop of lush tropical beauty, Frances and Dennis struggle with the mutability of love and Florida's weather, as well as temptation, chaos, and disappointment. But just when Frances thinks she's reached some semblance of higher ground, she must confront an obstacle so great that even the lessons she's learned about navigating the uncharted waters of family life can't keep them afloat.
With Stiltsville, Susanna Daniel weaves the beauty, violence, and humanity of Miami's coming-of-age with an enduring story of a marriage's beginning, maturity, and heartbreaking demise.
Review
“Set against the wild and changeable landscape of South Florida, Stiltsville is a wise and loving portrait of a marriage, written with keen insight into the ways two lives grow together over the years. This is a rare first novel. Susanna Daniel writes beautifully of matters of the heart.” Jennifer Haigh, author of The Condition, Baker Towers, and Mrs. Kimble
Review
“A quietly remarkable novel. . . . Reminiscent of Marilynn Robinsons Home.” Scott Eyman, Palm Beach Post
Review
“I fell in love with Susanna Daniels characters, Dennis and Frances. The dialogue, the pacing, and the tenderness between this married couple is so authentic and true. But its the setting of Florida, and especially the place that is Stiltsville, that literally elevates this story to magic.” Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
Review
“This soulful novel will inspire you to reflect on your own definitions of house, home, and what really makes a couple close.” Redbook
Review
“A deeply engrossing tale of love, family, friendship, and motherhood, Stiltsville is both an elegantly crafted work of art and a great read. The love story effortlessly spans decades, and the characters are as real and vivid as the novels South Florida backdrop. Susanna Daniel is an extraordinary writer.” Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep and American Wife
Review
“I fell in love in the opening pages of Stiltsville. There was nothing I wanted more than to spend time in the company of these vivid characters and keep reading Susanna Daniels lovely, lucid prose.” Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street
Review
“Both structurally and in tone, the book recalls linked short-story collections such as Alice Munros The Beggar Maid, following one character chronologically through a long period. Each piece can stand alone, but the whole is enriched when they are read together. . . . Lovely.” Laura C.J. Owen, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
“In this wise and luminous novel, Susanna Daniel does something truly rare: she creates characters so real that you feel theyve entered the very room where you sit reading. Before you know it, theyve also entered your heart, and are breaking it…. A work of tremendous maturity, empathy and humanity.” Dani Shapiro, author of Devotion and Black and White
Synopsis
"A wise and loving portrait of a marriage....Susanna Daniel writes beautifully of matters of the heart."
-- Jennifer Haigh, author of
The Condition
Against a vivid South Florida background, Susanna Daniel's
Stiltsville offers a gripping, bittersweet portrait of a marriage--and a romance--that deepens over the course of three decades. Called "an elegantly crafted work of art and a great read" by Curtis Sittenfeld (
American Wife, Prep)
Stiltsville is a stunningly assured debut novel sure to appeal to readers of Anita Shreve, Sue Miller, and Annie Dillard, or anyone enchanted by the sultry magic of Miami.
Synopsis
“A wise and loving portrait of a marriage….Susanna Daniel writes beautifully of matters of the heart.”
— Jennifer Haigh, author of The Condition
Against a vivid South Florida background, Susanna Daniels Stiltsville offers a gripping, bittersweet portrait of a marriage—and a romance—that deepens over the course of three decades. Called “an elegantly crafted work of art and a great read” by Curtis Sittenfeld (American Wife, Prep) Stiltsville is a stunningly assured debut novel sure to appeal to readers of Anita Shreve, Sue Miller, and Annie Dillard, or anyone enchanted by the sultry magic of Miami.
About the Author
Susanna Daniel was born and raised in Miami, Florida, where she spent much of her childhood at her family's stilt house in Biscayne Bay. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and was a fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin.