An irresistible love story, an unforgettable family. The New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait and Hamnet captures an extraordinary marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor in what Richard Russo calls “her breakout book.”
Daniel Sullivan leads a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and his wife, Claudette, is a reclusive ex–film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Together, they have made an idyllic life in the country, but a secret from Daniel’s past threatens to destroy their meticulously constructed and fiercely protected home. Shot through with humor and wisdom, This Must Be the Place is an irresistible love story that crisscrosses continents and time zones as it captures an extraordinary marriage, and an unforgettable family, with wit and deep affection.
“Intensely absorbing. . . . O’Farrell writes novels in which you can happily lose yourself.” —NPR
“Compassionate. . . . Few contemporary writers equal Maggie O’Farrell’s gift for combining intricate, engrossing plots with full-bodied characterizations.” —The Washington Post
“Heartfelt.” —Vogue
“Marvelous, a contemporary and highly readable experiment whose ambitious structure both enacts and illuminates its central concern: what links and separates our 21st-century selves as we love, betray, blunder and soldier on (and back) through time.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Extraordinary. . . . An engrossing novel . . . from a writer of impressive, perhaps masterly, skills.” —The Washington Times