The Enchantment of Lily Dahl: A Novel

Siri Hustvedt, whose debut novel The Blindfold was showered with critical acclaim, returns with The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, the coming of age story of a voluptuous and vacuous aspiring actress who lives in a small town in Minnesota. In addition to the Marilyn Monroe-esque title character, Hustvedt provides a bevy of quirky characters including Lily's former high school pal Martin Petersen, who is assembling a collection of corpse photographs, and Edward Shapiro, the college professor and painter whom Lily quickly beds. On top of that, Hustvedt layers on a nice little murder mystery, which Lily investigates and solves.