The Writing on the Wall: A Novel

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When Vera decides to travel to an old house in the New England countryside for a month-long escape from some devastating news about her daughter, Cassie, she has no idea her life is about to change forever. It begins innocently enough—peeling the old wallpaper from the walls as a favor to the house’s owner. What she discovers underneath—written in India ink on the very walls of the house by a woman named Beth, in 1919—is the beginning of the reader’s unsettling crossing into the unknown world underneath the paper. The Writing on the Wall is a brilliantly realized journey into the connected lives of three women whose stories span a century, linked by the house they all briefly inhabit, and by the tragedies they've had to endure. And it's not just their own stories that reveal themselves. A brilliant schoolteacher, back from the war in the trenches, finds the pupils of his dreams. A young Vietnam draftee makes a stubbornly quirky separate peace. The moody, dangerously charismatic leader of a commune becomes the unlikeliest of heroes. An “ordinary” housewife's lonely battle propels her onto the national stage. A girl sent to Iraq tries making sense of the chaos and the pain. The Writing on the Wall is about stories that can't be told, but must be told—about secrets that can't be shared, but must be shared—and the surprising ways people find to confront the truth.From BooklistIn his latest novel, Wetherell (Hills like White Hills, 2009) finds a unique way to tell the stories of three women. Vera Savino retreats to the old New England house her sister owns in the wake of her daughter’s disgrace during a stint in the army. Vera insists on undertaking the remodeling project her sister planned, and she begins by stripping off the wallpaper. Underneath the many layers, she discovers a memoir of sorts written in tiny handwriting by Beth, a young woman who resided in the house in 1919. Vera becomes caught up in Beth’s confessions about her desire to continue her education after her marriage and her feelings for a charismatic teacher. As Vera strips the walls to follow Beth’s story, she discovers that another woman has followed suit. Dottie, a housewife who lived in the house in the 1960s, hid her son Andy, who went AWOL from the army. Beth’s and Dottie’s struggles help Vera find the courage to take her pen to the wall to recount the horrifying secret her daughter shared with her. --Kristine Huntley Review“W. D. Wetherell is a fearless acrobat with words and narrative structures. His work, filled with humor, warmth and wisdom, asks us to re-examine our recent history.” (Chicago Tribune )“W.D. Wetherell has a sharp, fresh eye and a complicated view of our dislocations, pains and dreams.” (New York Times )