(2001, 324 pages) More about Falling Angels at Powell's Books or Off their feet, the author's depth of insight into them gives Falling Angels a compelling complexity and

If the central characters are too reserved to sweep readers To wear - but also undermine them by substituting display for genuine emotional That her mourning dress relieves her of a burdensome daily decision about what Chevalier shows how theĮlaborately prescribed customs both support human needs - one character remarks Mourning customs are the central metaphor in this novel about the cripplingĮffects of dishonesty and silence in family life. Tone from Maude rather than from sentimental, self-dramatizing Lavinia. The characters' dialogue and behavior reveal their natures. Them to a side of life from which both sets of parents have been insulated.Ĭhevalier's writing is brisk and straightforward she lets Together, much of it roaming the cemetery, where a gravedigger's son introduces Nevertheless, over the years the two girls spend more and more time Religion, despises the angel and has insisted on an ostentatious urn for their Maude's father, a banker for whom science takes the place of Preside over their family graves, Maude a book-lover.

Lavinia a romantic whose family allowed her to choose an oversized angel to The cemetery at the same time on the day after the queen's death, and theirįive-year-old daughters meet and become friends. Two families with neighboring cemetery plots happen to be visiting Takes place in London during the time from Queen Victoria's death to KingĮdward's.

Falling angels tracy chevalier summary