First Novel in French

Set in Venice, Lauren Elkin's first novel tells the story of Catherine, an American grad student who has left New York to spend nine months studying early printed manuscripts. Almost immediately, she begins to feel estranged from her American life, in particular her fiancé and the publishing family into which she'd planned to marry. She takes a lover, Marco, who lets her in on a secret: a hidden, centuries-old synagogue to which a mysterious Croatian visitor had led him. Instead of the books she went to Venice to study, Catherine begins to research the history of the synagogue as she helps clear the mud from its beautiful mosaics.