“Villa E is both paean to the legacies of modernism — from Gray and Le Corbusier to Joyce — and a beautiful book from a writer who boldly tacks against the winds of literary realism.”
—Hamilton Cain, The Boston Globe
“Villa E is a work of tremendous psychological intricacy and physical beauty. Jane Alison writes sentences that are as hypnotic and lyric as the sea.”
― Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise
“Villa E is an irresistible tale of beauty, obsession and hubris. Jane Alison’s portrait of Le Corbusier as a master builder reduced to vandalism by envy is complex and powerful.”
— Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank
“Watching Eileen and Le G spiral down into the past and embrace the future, I, too, was transported to the shores of the Mediterranean: light, water, rocks, a gleaming building. Alison writes like no one else.”
― Margot Livesey, author of The Road from Belhaven
“A remarkable gender parable filtered through a sophisticated imagination.”
— Kirkus
“[A] concentrated tale of an epic duel between two temperamentally opposite artists . . In prose, by turns, as exquisite as Eileen’s creation and as seething as Le Grand’s lust, Alison incisively evokes artistic genius and angst, while infusing a historic scandal with profound heartache and resolve.”
—Booklist