Narrating her own work, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück offers her first work of fiction, a meditation on language, identity, motherhood, and death as experienced by not-yet-one-year-old twins Marigold and Rose. The pair are opposites: Rose is the "good” baby—pretty, happy, and social—whereas, Marigold is “difficult” and introspective. But Marigold is also a writer who is gathering material to write about their mother’s childhood once she has the words. Glück’s narration, weathered and tender, reveals her gift for storytelling. Her poetic roots are manifest as she dwells on gemlike realizations, which range from the recognition that books and animals do not judge to the desirability of adulthood’s “vast cargo of words.” This brief but penetrating audio is a treasure, illuminating new insights at every turn. S.A.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

08/08/2022

Poet Glück (Winter Recipes from the Collective), a Nobel Prize winner, makes her fiction debut with a quirky story of the inner lives of infant twins. Marigold and Rose are opposites. Marigold prefers keeping to herself and, in her mind, is writing a book about the conundrum that their mother was once a child. Rose prefers attention and action. The mother is kind, and their father is always pleased to see them after returning from work (indeed, it’s “always a festival when he came home”). The twins wrestle with making sense of the world, such as the story of heaven told to them after their grandmother dies or how her death connects to their mother’s sudden desire to find a job. As the babies’ first birthday arrives, they begin to recognize their differences, which Glück conceptualizes in clever references to their names (Rose credits the red lollipops they receive at the doctor’s office to her beauty, rather than the yellow for Marigold). There’s not much of a plot, but Glück is surgically precise in her prose: Marigold is a “lot of needs improvement boxes checked,” while Rose’s first efforts at talking come “in loud gusts and torrents.” It’s an odd little work, but a good one. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)

Luminous . . . [Marigold and Rose] shimmers with Glück’s trademark poetic voice, weaving everyday magic into playpens and cribs.” —TIME

“[Marigold and Rose] exists in a liminal zone between poetry and prose . . . Glück, in shrinking the world to the size of a pair of blankets inside cribs, manages to gently pack her narrative with feeling . . . It addresses, in larval and thus primal form, many of the concerns of Glück’s poetry. As she wrote in a poem titled ‘Nostos’: ‘We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.’” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Glück’s emotional intelligence never surrenders to cosy consolation, yet the writing remains exquisitely beautiful . . . Marigold and Rose can be devoured in a single sitting, and that’s probably the best way to enter its tonal world, which is strangely hypnotic, in part because the mood never swings to violent intensity, and in part because of the orderly rhythms of Glück’s prose . . . [Marigold and Rose] brilliantly evokes the timelessness of early childhood, and indeed of babyhood, before a child has even adapted to her own circadian rhythms. There is that sense of suspension, of living without past or future, which is the superpower of infancy.” —Fiona Sampson, The Guardian

“Alongside an exploration of the dichotomies that bind the girls together are meditations on many of Glück’s familiar preoccupations: halves and wholes, familial inheritance, time’s passage, the psychic power of words. The innocence of the girls’ observations, bearing an infant clarity, pare many of the book’s subjects down to a revealing frankness.” —The New Yorker

“Stunningly imaginative, incisive, sly, and hilarious . . . Concentrating the depth, rigor, and complexity of her poems into a delectably renegade, mordant, and bravura prose performance, Glück tracks the love and rivalry between these little philosophers . . . Succinctly and provocatively illuminates the vagaries of human consciousness, the bewitchment of language, and the mysterious assertion of the self.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist

"[Marigold and Rose] centers on twin sisters in their first year of life, unfolding like a fable as they slowly come to grips with time, safety, happiness, loss, and the vagaries of communication . . . Reed-slim, it teems with small wisdoms and lilts like a lullaby." —Marley Marius, Vogue

“The 2020 Nobel Prize–winning poet here pens a gorgeous 52-page work of fiction that is as magical as a fairy tale . . . This tiny gem of a book packs a gut-wrenching punch, ruminating on family, the passage of time, and the power of words.” —Oprah Daily

09/01/2022

After two essay collections and a baker's dozen books of poetry, this latest from Nobel Prize winner Glück offers a formal pivot, even as it remains thematically of a piece. Billed somewhat winkingly as "A Fiction," this concise work tells the story of twin girls across the first year of their lives. Tonally situated somewhere between fairy tale and picture book, Glück's story takes the shape of an internal-dialogue two hander, moving between the contrasting observations and personalities of the twinfants: Marigold is an interior child; Rose a confident "extrovert." Alternating between rudimentary experiences of the baby years—bath time; comparisons between Mother and Father—and existential quandaries about identity, time, and, specifically, language, Glück works toward the expression of a complex, nuanced emotionality cut through at times with profound wonder, at others deep melancholy. This particular shade of fabulism is a logical entry point for a poet, using the acquisition of language and its mystery as a jumping-off point for ontological inquiry: "everything will disappear but I will know many words." But while the narrative can be quite clever in spurts, any intellectual heft is more teased than developed, and the poet's typically graceful language takes a backseat to the story's lightweight allegorical playfulness. VERDICT A sly, winsome tale; of interest to longtime Glück fans and easily digestible for all readers, but failing to rise above the level of charming trifle.—Luke Gorham

Narrating her own work, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück offers her first work of fiction, a meditation on language, identity, motherhood, and death as experienced by not-yet-one-year-old twins Marigold and Rose. The pair are opposites: Rose is the "good” baby—pretty, happy, and social—whereas, Marigold is “difficult” and introspective. But Marigold is also a writer who is gathering material to write about their mother’s childhood once she has the words. Glück’s narration, weathered and tender, reveals her gift for storytelling. Her poetic roots are manifest as she dwells on gemlike realizations, which range from the recognition that books and animals do not judge to the desirability of adulthood’s “vast cargo of words.” This brief but penetrating audio is a treasure, illuminating new insights at every turn. S.A.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

2022-08-06
An unusual offering from a celebrated poet.

Poet Laureate of the United States in 2003-2004 and winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in literature, Glück is known for—among other things—choosing her words with exquisite care. She uses everyday language to create a background for an unexpected word, and she uses context to give everyday language unexpected weight. In her latest work, she explores the acquisition of language and how it shapes our realities. Marigold and Rose are babies. They are also twins. The limits of their world would be entirely defined by Mother, Father, and Grandmother if Marigold didn’t like to read. Rose is not, herself, very interested in books, but she has a ready retort for the narrator who says, “Marigold was still reading. Of course she wasn’t reading; neither of the twins could read; they were babies. But we have inner lives, Rose thought.” In addition to being an avid reader—even though she obviously can’t read—Marigold is also a writer. “Marigold was writing a book. That she couldn’t read was an impediment. Nevertheless, the book was forming in her head. The words would come later.” Like all babies, Marigold and Rose understand more than they can easily express, and the author imbues her protagonists with a rationalism that feels as true as it is funny. Glück calls this new book “a fiction,” and that is a precisely vague choice. It’s too short to be a novel and too long to be a short story. The word novella tends to suggest plot, which this text lacks. It’s tempting to suggest that it’s a fable, and it’s true that some readers might find a straightforward meaning in how Glück differentiates her characters. Rose—the sociable one, the pretty one—is the “good baby.” Marigold turns to books because—like animals—they don’t judge her. But life is weird. Words are magic. And the moral of the story is seldom as simple as it might seem.

Wise, funny, and wonderfully odd.