Cover

Goldengrove: A Novel by Francine Prose

The animating spirit of Francine Prose’s new novel is the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” It supplies not only the novel’s title and epigraph but also the names of its central character and of the bookstore her family owns. Characters discuss the verse both obliquely and directly, and it appears a second time, in full, almost midway through the story, when the narrator finds it in an anthology and is so overwhelmed upon reading it that she has to lie down on the floor. Given the narrative weight Prose confers on the poem, it seems fitting to pay it a moment’s attention here.

Book Review - ‘Goldengrove ,’ by Francine Prose - Review - NYTimes.com.