The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

Resumen del libro

The New York Times-bestselling author of The Imperfectionists returns with a brilliant, intricately woven novel about a bookseller who travels the world to make sense of her puzzling past.

Tooly Zylberberg, the young American owner of an isolated bookstore in the Welsh countryside, fills her life with much reading material but few human beings. After all, books are safer than people, who might ask awkward questions about her life. She prefers never to mention the strange events of her childhood, which mystify and worry her still. Taken from home as a girl, she found herself shuttled from one country to another, implicated in capers from Asia to Europe to the United States. But who were her abductors and why did they take her? There was Humphrey, a lovable old Russian with a passion for books; there was the seductive but tempestuous Sarah, who sowed chaos wherever she went; and there was Venn, the charismatic leader of them all, whose worldview transformed the growing girl forever. Until, inexplicably, Venn disappeared one day, leaving Tooly - then twenty - unmoored and bereft for years to come. More than a decade later, she believes herself condemned to never understand what happened. Then, quite unexpectedly, she receives word from a long-lost boyfriend, whose astonishing news stirs up all the old mysteries-and hints that clues may lie in New York City. Desperate for answers, Tooly begins a quest that leads her from America to Italy and back, as she pieces together her own life story. Tom Rachman - an author celebrated for humanity, humor and wonderful characters - has produced a stunning and ambitious novel that tells not just the tale of one woman, but dips into the story of the past quarter-century, from the end of the Cold War, to the dominance of American empire, to the digital revolution of today. Leaping between the Eighties, the Nineties and now, from Bangkok to Brooklyn, this breathtaking book will amplify Rachman's reputation as one of the most exciting young writers we have.