RaveThe New York Times Book Review... ingenious and entertaining ... Trussoni’s hands are as creepy as you might expect from an author who also writes the Book Review’s horror column ... One of the many pleasures of this addictive book is the narrator’s excitement in the act of reading ... an elegant touch of Gothic mirroring that multiplies our own pleasure even as Bert’s search becomes more urgent ... the genetic secrets Bert uncovers are rather more surprising than learning you’re more French than Italian. They might prove a little outlandish for some readers, but we’ve had fair warning: We’re in a Gothic novel and there may be monsters...The answers may be a little muddled, but can you really fault the author for failing to resolve such profound subjects? ... The Gothic has traditionally been used as a vehicle for exploring contradictions — between past and present, the dead and the living, the self and the other. The central contradictions in The Ancestor reside in the questions of who we are and where we belong — of what divides us and what unites us — questions harder to answer than what’s behind the Black Veil of Udolpho. Those are the mysteries we’re invited to discover in this chilling and inventive novel.
