The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson: A Novel

by Ellen Baker

Overview

“A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After

Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.

In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.

In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.

Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063351196
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/20/2024
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	5,714
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Ellen Baker is the author of Keeping the House and I Gave My Heart to Know This. She has worked as a bookseller and event coordinator at an independent bookstore. Originally from the Upper Midwest, she currently lives in Maine.

Editorial Reviews

12/18/2023

The uneven latest from Baker (Keeping the House) poses questions about adoption and family heritage. In a small town in Minnesota in 2015, Cecily Larson, 94, breaks her hip and, confined to a hospital bed, realizes time may be running out to share the secret she’s kept for her entire life, which stems from her childhood. At age seven, Cecily was taken from a Chicago orphanage to be trained as a bareback rider in a traveling circus. Baker makes clear that the secret, which is revealed to the reader later on, will impact Cecily’s widowed daughter Liz, her divorced granddaughter Molly, and her teenage grandson Caden, who has just started a research project on his family’s DNA. At the same time in Florida and North Carolina, members of another branch of the Larson family are wondering about their own mysterious family history and start taking DNA tests. Cecily’s circus life provides plenty of colorful drama, but subplots involving Molly’s lingering ambivalence about her divorce years earlier and Liz’s cancer diagnosis are tied up too quickly in the rushed final act, and the conclusion is too convenient to be convincing. There’s too much clutter in this family saga. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-12-16
Something old meets something new in a melodrama with DNA testing as its deus ex machina.

Baker’s latest begins in an orphanage in 1924 Chicago and hopscotches its way around the country and through the years to a climactic scene set in that city almost a century later. Though Cecily Larson’s mother tells her she’ll be back within a year when she drops the little girl off at the institution in the opening scene, three years later Cecily has turned 7 and no mama has appeared. So—the orphanage sells her to the circus! Where she will be trained as an acrobatic bareback rider! Meanwhile, in an alternating series of chapters set in 2015, Cecily is a woman in her 90s living in a small town in northern Minnesota. She has a daughter named Liz, who has a daughter named Molly, who has a son named Caden (definitely a little hard to keep straight)—and Caden wants to do his honors biology project on DNA testing. Ruh-roh, thinks the alert reader, seeing something coming in the distance, which becomes even more discernible when new chapters begin to follow a second mother-daughter group on the East Coast. After a while, you feel just like the people in the book: When the heck are those DNA results going to arrive? While it’s a little trying to wait so long for the fuse to blow on all the secrets and lies and underhanded dealings, it turns out we don’t know the half of it. As a rule, an amazing DNA-reveal story needs to be true to be really interesting...but if you’re going to make one up, this one’s a doozy. Baker’s re-creation of circus life, tuberculosis-sanitarium life, and home-for-wayward-girls life in the 1920s and ’30s is well researched and punchy, while the 21st-century Minnesota storyline is perhaps a little droopier. But those test results are coming, and so is the big shebang..

The literary equivalent of a Minnesota hot dish: decent, tasty comfort food.

Kirkus Reviews

A family secret, a DNA test, a journey as rich and colorful as the early-day circus itself. Through Cecily Larson’s hidden life, Ellen Baker tenderly examines personal determination, lost love, family ties, and our innate need to discover our own truth.” — Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and Before and After

“A sprawling, beautiful delight of a novel spanning nearly a century as four generations gradually peel back the layers of long-buried family secrets that may just change everything. Ellen Baker weaves the intricacies of family dynamics into the complicated fabric of early 20th-century America, deftly tackling issues of race, identity, loss, and trauma through the story of a family you’ll be rooting for with all your heart. I immensely enjoyed this sweeping, heartrending, emotional roller coaster of a tale, which made me laugh, cry, and think about the true meaning of family.” — Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Daughter

"Unforgettable. Baker's electrifying tale is a haunting testament to the complex intersections of familial bonds driven by a remarkable courage which can only be found in hope."  — Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek series 

"The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is a deeply satisfying, multi-generational rollercoaster of a novel written in gorgeous prose and with characters that ring so true you want to reach out and touch them. I savored every page of this book and will remember the story of Cecily and Lucky for a very long time to come." — Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and Community Board

“The Hidden Life Of Cecily Larson explores the lasting legacy of love, family, loss, and luck, beautifully told through the lives of an extended family. It is heartbreaking, yet redeeming, and shines a light on the power of hope. I loved Ellen’s storytelling.” — Crystal Smith Paul, author of Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

“Part genetic mystery and part adventure story, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson takes readers on a riveting ride through America, spanning nearly a century of history, heartbreak, and—most importantly—hope. At the center of the novel is one impossible love story, whose reverberations echo through the generations in surprising ways. With rich, original settings, determined characters, and countless twists and turns, Ellen Baker has written a deeply felt novel about families, both lost and found.”  — Thao Thai, author of Banyan Moon

“Ellen Baker has written the quintessential escape novel, whose overflowing plot involves three generations of women, family secrets, a one-ring circus (really), and the pleasure of historical flashbacks. Light a fire and settle in.” — Monica Wood, author of The One-in-a-Million Boy

“An engaging, multigenerational family saga….Baker deftly weaves the lives of three generations of Larson women into a moving tale of secrets, identity, and found family.” — Booklist

“An intense true-to-life literary family saga…[THE HIDDEN LIFE OF CECILY LARSON] delves deeply into human cruelty and kindness, evolving racism, the Depression’s crushing impact on common people, and relationships based on love or arranged to satisfy social expectations.” — Historical Novels Review

"A sweeping tale of love and loss." — People

"Baker’s re-creation of circus life, tuberculosis-sanitarium life, and home-for-wayward-girls life in the 1920s and ’30s is well researched and punchy." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Cassandra Campbell brings her usual insightful delivery to Baker's multilayered family drama. Campbell is an experienced, steady narrator with a smooth, consistent delivery. She adds nuance to Cecily Larson, subtly aging her from the 4-year-old who's been deserted by her mother, through growing up and adulthood, and ending with the 94-year-old matriarch whose "hidden life" is about to be exposed by her great-grandson's DNA project. Secondary characters have less uniqueness to their voices. As the story moves back and forth in time and between two seemingly unconnected families, it is incumbent upon the listener to give 110 percent of their attention to the plot and characters. Disparate threads are slowly woven into a fascinating tapestry of family, secrets, and unexpected connection. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

MAY 2024 - AudioFile