If you could walk out of your old life, leaving everything behind, and into a new one filled with beauty, magic, and wonder, would you? Two sisters are confronted by this question in Tara Isabella Burton’s latest literary thriller Here in Avalon, which came out earlier this month. I loved the decadent dark side of New York City that Tara conjured up in her debut Social Creature. With this book, Tara explores the same city through a lens of glittering magic. But even the most ethereal of artists and dreamers cannot truly live inside a fairy tale….
Rose has always been the practical sister. Though Cecilia’s innocent optimism and boundless creativity were a balm during their neglected childhood, Rose can’t help but resent the way Cecilia seems to have never grown up. While Cecilia flitted from continent to continent chasing after adventure or true love or some amorphous “Holy Grail,” Rose took care of their dying mother, embarked on an ambitious career in tech, and maintained the Tudor City apartment they’d grown up in. Her fiancé Caleb can never understand why Rose is still there to pick up the pieces every time Cecilia whirlwinds back into her life for a brief moment between heartbreaks or disappointments and then whisks away again without a word. Yet Rose could never just abandon her sister. So when Cecilia disappears again after weeks of odd behavior and cryptic talk about a magical cabaret aboard a mysterious boat, Rose can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Reluctantly, she goes behind Caleb’s back and teams up with Cecilia’s jilted husband Paul to track down clues to her sister’s whereabouts. But the closer Rose gets to the cult-like cabaret that calls itself the Avalon, the more she feels the pull that drew her sister into it in the first place.
Sacrifice is a major theme throughout the novel. Rose has built her life on self-inflicted martyrdom in her quest to behave as she believes a proper adult “should” and achieve the kind of financial stability and societal approval that her mother and sister never could. She gives up her love of painting to focus on the more practical skill of programming and finds herself continually compromising with her fiancé Caleb and his sometimes unpalatable friends. But to chase after Cecilia, she would need to let go of everything she has worked so hard to achieve. Cecilia, on the other hand, abandons a man she truly loves as part of her constant, restless pursuit of meaning. She easily gives up any connection to the rest of the world when she joins the Avalon and accepts their conditions of absolute secrecy—although she doesn’t quite give up hope of maintaining a relationship with her sister. Within the Avalon, all members are expected to sacrifice the lives they had before—including any social or financial ties to the outside world—in exchange for a cozy communal life dedicated fully to art and beauty. And Morgan, the leader of the Avalon, is whispered to have made some sort of Faustian bargain for her musical gifts, which allow her to write innumerable specially crafted songs that can totally transport and touch the heart of any listener. Are all of these sacrifices worth it? That’s up to each reader to decide.
But I will say that you don’t need to sacrifice your whole life (and independence and finances) to experience magic and beauty in the real world, as Tara does a beautiful job of demonstrating through little references to some of the most magical places and communities in New York City. If one wishes to be transported by beauty, one need look no further than the Metropolitan Opera or any of NYC’s innumerable museums—especially the Cloisters, an unexpected little pocket of medieval art and architecture at the top of Manhattan. Tara also references several real-world bars and nightlife hubs that foster close-knit communities centered around live music and the arts. But my favorite little Easter egg in the book is a reference to what I have long considered one of the most hauntingly beautiful spots in the city. The grave of Charlotte Canda in Green-Wood Cemetery is a breath-taking monument of white Carrara marble sculpted into Gothic towers and arches that frame a lovely sculpture of the young debutante who lies beneath. This beautiful memorial comes with a tragic backstory about a young woman whose sudden death cut short a life full of promise. If you ever find yourself in Brooklyn, I highly recommend taking a trip into Green-Wood to check it out.
If you love stories about art, beauty, yearning, and poor decisions, you’ll definitely want to pick up Here in Avalon. You can find it on shelves now at your favorite local retailer or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments! And remember, The Gothic Library is now on an every-other-week schedule, so my next post will be on January 29.