The Unmasking

A Novel

Lynn C Miller author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of New Mexico Press

Published:30th Oct '20

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The Unmasking cover

Best friends Bettina, Miriam, and Fiona are shocked when their dean of liberal studies dies in a single-car accident amid accusations of mishandling university funds. They suspect murder, especially after learning that the dean's estranged wife will inherit three million dollars. Events take a surprising turn when they travel from Austin, Texas, to a Chautauqua performance in Silver City, New Mexico, where they join several others, some with questionable motives, including the dean's wife and her lover. In the close confines of the lodge, the group brings to life remarkable women from history - including Victoria Woodhull, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Virginia Woolf. But when one woman is kidnapped and another disappears, the friends' lives are forever changed as they realize that the masks we wear often hide chilling truths.

Extended discussions of feminism, academic shenanigans, and the lives of women who left their mark on literature. English majors will best appreciate this one."—Publishers Weekly

"In a witty homage to the locked-room mystery, The Unmasking isolates a group of feminist scholars at a resort in New Mexico. They are there to perform as remarkable women from history such as Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and Edith Wharton, when the performance festival takes a sinister turn." —John Dennis Anderson, author of Student Companion to William Faulkner

"This is a novel that will captivate you on many levels: an intriguing mystery in which lives are at stake, the story of a group of wonderfully devoted friends, and a study of the difficulties in deciphering our own and other people's realities. A book to savor and return to." —Kathleen Hill, author of She Read to Us in the Late Afternoons: A Life in Novels

"Lynn C. Miller knows women-their wit, intelligence, humor, and sexuality. During a Chautauqua festival, TheUnmasking brings together friends, antagonists, lovers, and sleuths in a tale of drama and suspense. Published in the year of the one hundredth anniversary of women winning the right to vote in the United States, The Unmasking is a testament to women's creativity and sisterhood. Miller writes with an original fictional voice and the skill of an experienced playwright." —Bev Magennis, author of Alibi Creek

"In The Unmasking, Lynn Miller offers a great cast of characters: a group of scholars caught up in a murder case that calls upon their insights into the mystery novels they study. Miller expertly toys with reader expectations and offers sharp, amusing jabs along the way--all the while celebrating revolutionary women writers and the much-beloved books they wrote." —Timothy Schaffert, author of The Swan Gondola: A Novel

"The Unmasking is smart, irreverent, and wickedly tender. Miller displays an unerring eye for contemporary American foibles, inside and outside academic life, using a classic murder mystery to expose the truth to her characters and the reader. Not for a minute does The Unmasking lose its perfect pitch or its pacing. Don't skip a page, don't skip a paragraph--it will all be covered on the final exam." — Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of My Life as a Silent Movie: A Novel

ISBN: 9780826361714

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 380g

246 pages