Goldengrove

During pre-publication readings from her sometimes lyrical, sometimes mournful, always enthralling 12th novel, Goldengrove, Francine Prose was amazed to hear her listeners laugh.

"People laughed!" Prose exclaims during a call to the Greenwich Village home she shares with her husband, the artist Howard Michels. Prose speaks in energetic, good-humored bursts of thought. "I was surprised. Because the book seems to me so grim. But then, apparently, it is not. So I'm delighted, really."