Glassworks - Paperback

by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (Author)

A gorgeously written and irresistibly intimate queer novel that follows one family across four generations to explore legacy and identity in all its forms.

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction and VCU Cabell First Novel Prizes
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Apple, and Good Housekeeping

In 1910, Agnes Carter makes the wrong choice in marriage. After years as an independent woman of fortune, influential with the board of a prominent university because of her financial donations, she is now subject to the whims of an abusive, spendthrift husband. But when Bohemian naturalist and glassblower Ignace Novak reignites Agnes's passion for science, Agnes begins to imagine a different life, and she sets her mind to getting it.

Agnes's desperate actions breed secrecy, and the resulting silence echoes into the future. Her son, Edward, wants to be a man of faith but struggles with the complexities of the mortal world while apprenticing at a stained-glass studio.

In 1986, Edward's child, Novak-just Novak-is an acrobatic window washer cleaning Manhattan high-rises, who gets caught up in the plight of Cecily, a small town girl remade as a gender-bending Broadway ing?nue.

And in 2015, Cecily's daughter Flip-a burned-out stoner trapped in a bureaucratic job firing cremains into keepsake glass ornaments-resolves to break the cycle of inherited secrets, reaching back through the generations in search of a family legacy that feels true.

With "gripping turns and subtle prose" (The Washington Post), Glassworks is a sophisticated debut that holds you in its thrall until the last page.

Author Biography

Olivia Wolfgang-Smith is the author of Mutual Interest and Glassworks, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts and lives in Brooklyn with her partner.