Minot's bestselling debut: A moving novel of familial love and endurance in the face of shattering tragedy. Monkeys is the remarkable story of a decade in the life of the Vincents, a colorful Irish Catholic family from the Boston suburbs. On the surface, they seem happy with their vivacious mother Rosie at the helm. But underneath, the Vincents struggle to maintain the appearance of wealth and stability while dealing with the effects of their father's...

A Boston Brahmin woman must choose between duty and passion when a former lover reenters her life. Born into an affluent New England family at the turn of the twentieth century, Lillian Eliot engages in the coming-of-age rituals traditional of her social status. But when she meets Walter Vail, a charming and spontaneous New Yorker, her world is opened to new possibilities. As the Great War erupts, Walter leaves for Europe and marries another woman,...

Using a single interlude-a brief encounter of old lovers, two bodies entwined on a bed at midday-Minot defines the distance that erupts at what seems to be the height of connection, as well as the extent to which the senses deceive, and the intensely private eroticism of fantasy and the imagination. Minot's lovers are mesmerizing in their individual journeys-one moving toward a kind of holy consummation, the other toward abnegation and blank despair....