Glassworks

"This era-spanning debut novel begins in 1910 with Agnes, a philanthropist and naturalist, who marries a cad. To cope, she loses herself in a friendship with Ignace Novak, a glassblower she has hired to make pristine models of plants and animals. In the next generation, Agnes’ son, Edward, a failed priest candidate, becomes enamored with a spirited young woman, who’s not what she seems. Their eventual child, Novak, a window washer in New York City, gets entangled with a Broadway ingénue, Cecily; Cecily’s child, Flip – also working with glass like those in generations past – has to untangle her family’s history as she tries to find her own way in life."