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It is the Saturday after the 2016 presidential election, and in a plush weekend house in Connecticut, a group of New Yorkers has gathered to recover from what they consider the greatest political catastrophe of their lives. Liberal and like-minded, the friends have come to the countryside in the hope of restoring the bubble in which they have grown used to living.
Moving through her days accompanied by a carefully curated salon, Eva Lindquist is a generous hostess with an obsession for decorating. Yet when, in her avidity to secure shelter for herself, she persuades her husband to buy a grand if dilapidated apartment in Venice, she unwittingly sets off the chain of events that will propel him to venture outside the bubble and embark on an unexpected love affair.
A slyly comic look at the shelter industry, Shelter in Place is a novel about house and home, furniture and rooms, safety and freedom and the insidious ways in which political upheaval can undermine even the most seemingly impregnable foundations.
Author: David Leavitt
Paperback Published 5 July 2022 384 pages
Originally published in trade paperback Published 1 December 2020
“A wickedly funny and emotionally expansive novel about all the bewildering ways we seek solace from the people and things that surround us” – Jenny Offill
“Very funny and unexpected, a material response to our times, plush as velvet” – Rachel Cusk
“Shelter in Place is a poignant, funny, wonderful novel, a pleasure and a joy” – Donald Antrim
“I've long been a fan of David Leavitt's work, for its range, its depth, its smarts and its humour. He is a phenomenal and prescient writer” – Justin Torres
“David Leavitt is a masterful writer and his dialogue, his innate sense of the rhythm of how people talk to each other, both in public and in private, is absolutely incredible. It's impossible not to be pulled into this novel, to see the epicentre of chaos in the lives of these characters, and listen to them try to talk themselves into a new imagining of the world. With precision and humour, Leavitt has created something amazing” – Kevin Wilson, author of 'Nothing to See Here'
“Leavitt is a master stylist ... An important writer. He is the rarest of all birds – a man of letters” – Edmund White