At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Cyril's son Danny and his older sister Maeve are exiled from...

Suddenly thrust into the public eye, aspiring actress Antonia Adams, who has been "invisible" all her life, must decide whether she will remain center stage or hide again when tragedy strikes, forcing her to decide how high a price she is willing to pay to pursue her passion.

"From New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a sharp, funny, and emotionally powerful novel about a family reuniting at the deathbed of its patriarch. In reckoning with his secret past, can they rebuild and begin anew?"-- "If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am," says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex--a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and...

The Cherry Orchard (1903) is Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov's final play. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Leonid Gayev, the bizarre and uninspired brother of Madame Ranevskaya. It has since become one of twentieth century theater's most important-and most frequently staged-dramatic works. After five years of living in...

Laura Bedrosian, kidnapped at age 13 and ransomed by her father, is forced to repay him by becoming a sexual replacement for her mentally-ill mother. For the next 20 years she repays that debt. But at age 33, her father, now suffering from dementia, is taken to a county fair where he is abandoned. The father's only ID is a piece of paper stating that his name is Larry. With her new-found freedom, Laura attempts to gather the shattered pieces of her...

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama"A tremendous achievement in American playwriting: a tragicomic populist portrait of a tough land and a tougher people. "-Time Out New York"Tracy Letts' August: Osage County is what O'Neill would be writing in 2007. Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama's mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original. "-New York magazineOne of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays...

"When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn--shy, quiet Brynn--who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget...

Canada's top playwright sears the page with three new darkly comic plays that denounce political culture, individualism, and the accompanying moral depravity. The title play, Dead Metaphor, examines the collision of a politician's personal and professional lives, complicated by a son's return from Afghanistan. In The Ravine, a mayoral candidate learns that his ex-wife is living in a gully nearby and wants to put a hit on him. The Burden of Self-Awareness...

Presiding over her family and its legacy of masterpiece Civil War art, North Carolina society maven Jerene Jarvis Johnston takes increasingly haphazard steps to protect her grown children from their own heedlessness.

"Spanning from World War II to the present, three generations of women struggle to find freedom and happiness in their small Midwestern college town as they face trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality"--