A House Among the Trees

A House Among the Trees is a richly plotted novel of friendship and love, artistic ambition, the perils of celebrity, and the power of an unexpected legacy. When the revered children’s book author Mort Lear dies accidentally at his Connecticut home, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair, who is moved by his generosity but dismayed by the complicated and defiant directives in his will. Tommy knew Morty for more than four decades, since meeting him in a Manhattan playground when she was twelve and he was working on sketches for the book that would make him a star. By the end of his increasingly reclusive life, she found herself living in his house as confidante and helpmeet, witness not just to his daily routines but to the emotional fallout of his strange boyhood and his volatile relationship with a lover who died of AIDS.

Now Tommy must try to honor Morty’s last wishes while grappling with their effects on several people, including her estranged brother; the lonely, outraged museum curator to whom Lear once promised his artistic estate; and Nicholas Greene, the beguiling British actor cast to play Mort Lear in a movie. When Greene arrives for a visit, he and Tommy are compelled to look more closely at Morty’s past, a process that undermines much of what Tommy believed she knew about her boss—and about herself. As she contemplates a future that will no longer include him, her unlikely alliance with Greene—and the loyalty they share toward the great man—will lead to surprising upheavals in their wider relationships, their careers, and even their search for love.