An absorbing story of a modern marriage framed in Greek mythology. Groff's sharply drawn portrait of a marriage begins on a cold Maine beach, with newlyweds "on their knees, now, though the sand was rough and hurt. It didn't matter. They were reduced to mouths and hands." This opener ushers in an ambitious, knowing novel besotted with sexin a kaleidoscope of varietymuch more abundant than the commune-dwellers got up to in Groff's luminous Arcadia (2012). The story centers first on Lancelot "Lotto" Satterwhite, a dashing actor at Vassar, who marries his classmate, flounders, then becomes a famous playwright. Lotto's name evokes the lotteryand the Fates, as his half of the book is titled. His wife, the imperial and striking Mathilde, takes over the second section, Furies, astir with grief and revenge. The plotting is exquisite, and the sentences hum; Groff writes with a pleasurable, bantering vividness. Her book is smart, albeit with an occasional vibrato of overkill. The author gives this novel a harder edge and darker glow than previous work, echoing Mathilde's observation, "She was so tired of the old way of telling stories, all those too worn narrative paths, the familiar plot thickets, the fat social novels. She needed something messier, something sharper, something like a bomb going off." Indeed it is. An intricate plot, perfect title, and a harrowing look at the tie that binds. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* This is a complex albeit harrowing look at marriage, not least because of Groff's dark and dazzling prose, which seduces the reader as much as the golden couple at the center of the compelling story. Glamorous Lotto and Mathilde marry at 22, much to the consternation of family and friends, who take bets on the year the marriage will dissolve. But the two stay married for decades, for they are, and remain, completely besotted with each other, possessed of a terrible hunger that will not be sated. The first half of the novel, entitled Fates, gives lanky lothario Lotto's perspective on the marriage. He sees nothing but Mathilde's goodness (the best person I know) and her unerring belief in his talent, and, after some years of struggling as an actor, Lotto finds great success as a playwright, which brings the couple both fame and wealth. The second half of the novel, Furies, turns the lens on Mathilde and will upend readers' expectations, for she is possessed of a cold calculation that will surprise and even dismay. Taking a page from Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl-like view of marriage, Groff fashions a searing, multilayered portrait of a union that seems to thrive on its darkest secrets.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2015 Booklist

THERE'S ALWAYS THE DANGER, with novels structured around a marriage, that they'll be perceived as centrally concerned not only with that particular relationship but with the nature of marriage itself. A domestic union set prominently in a work of fiction has the sometimes unfortunate capacity to obscure whatever else is going on. Yet "Fates and Furies," Lauren Groff's remarkable new novel, explodes and rages past any such preconceptions, insisting that the examination of a long-term relationship can be a perfect vehicle for exploring no less than the nature of existence - the domestic a doorway to the philosophical. The title sets the tone for this project, while also serving as a road map of sorts. The novel is divided into two sections, the first of which, "Fates," is largely concerned with the husband, Lancelot (Lotto) Satterwhite, an unconventionally irresistible beacon of good will and good faith - and more than a bit of a narcissist. The opening lines introduce us both to him and to his wife, Mathilde Yoder, but we are soon told: "For now, he's the one we can't look away from. He is the shining one." Wordplay abounds in "Fates and Furies," starting with Lotto's name and its link to such chance-related activities as lotteries. He's the central character explicitly associated with fate and destiny, and as such he's the more passive, the more accepting of the pair. And why not? From the beginning, fate seems to look on him with benevolence. His parents and his aunt, a crucial figure throughout, believe from Lotto's birth that he's destined for greatness: "It was taken for granted by this trio of adults that Lotto was special. Golden." And indeed, despite some setbacks - including not being particularly gifted at his first career of choice, acting - he goes on to achieve world fame as a playwright. Still, Lotto's life isn't perfect, his optimism not always justified. An early tragedy primes him, the golden one, to need Mathilde, a woman as canny as he is trusting, as comfortable behind the scenes as he is in the spotlight, and as dissembling as he is a (mostly) open book. The second section of the novel, "Furies," shifts to Mathilde. Her life has never been defined by a sense of glorious destiny but rather by a compulsion to even the score, any score, many scores. As with Lotto, there is a tragedy in her deep past, but in her case fate alone cannot be blamed, and the fallout from that fact sets her on a ruthless path - though an unnervingly steady one, at times. The equanimity with which the young Mathilde inflicts physical pain on her peers is chilling. After pinching the face of a mocking schoolmate, "she watched as, over the course of the hour, twin purple grapes developed on his cheek. She wanted to suck them." In later years, while she is capable of love - her devotion to her husband is consuming and real - she isn't notably softened by that emotion in any essential way. The story of Lotto and Mathilde's marriage begins as college ends, continuing through the lean times of Lotto's failed attempts at acting and then the riches and challenges of his success as a playwright. It's a tale told twice, with Lotto's perspective shaping the first version we hear. His understanding of his life with Mathilde, it turns out, is very similar to the marriage outsiders see, the public view. He has little impulse to dive much deeper than that. His trusting nature and unchallenged narcissism make him remarkably incurious, a man who questions neither the good fortune that has befallen him nor much of what his wife chooses to assert. Mathilde's version, coming second, as it must (it's the one that fills in the blanks), gives us a peek behind the curtain. We learn about the many secrets to which Lotto isn't privy, secrets whose existence he never even suspects. It turns out that Mathilde's fury has gone a long way in shaping both their fates. Almost nothing is as it has seemed. This is true to so great an extent that the discrepancy between their stories bears little relationship to the common observation that every marriage has two sides. In "Fates and Furies," Groff doesn't present two accounts of the same events, about which reasonable people might disagree. She presents two critically different sets of events. The deepest satisfaction gained by reading "Furies" after "Fates" lies less in admiring how tidily the puzzle pieces snap together - though they do - than in experiencing one's own kaleidoscopic shift of emotions and concerns. The disclosure of multiple secrets can have the effect of thinning a story, an abundance of answers overpowering all mystery, but Groff somehow manages to transform revelation into an agent of intricacy. As we know more, we know less - a rare and impressive result. THE QUESTIONS THAT emerge once the novel's disparate parts fall into place are neither small nor limited to the narrative at hand. Nor do they have much to do with the nature of marriage. They are questions about the way a person's character can be set very early in life; what really determines such things as good fortune; the nature of an existence in which none of this is ever truly understood. Groff - whose previous books are the novels "Arcadia" and "The Monsters of Templeton," along with the story collection "Delicate Edible Birds" - displays an exquisite sense of how best to use literary (and other) traditions and predecessors. Not only does she prominently rely on the classical concepts of the Fates and the Furies, but from time to time she interrupts her already linguistically pyrotechnic narrative with a second one, presented parenthetically. This shrewd voice, favoring quick, shorthand disclosures, is most obviously reminiscent of a Greek chorus, though at moments it can also feel as though the Fates themselves are irrepressibly spilling over with what they know. The aforementioned wordplay evokes Nabokov, as does the appearance of the perfect doppelgänger for a narcissist, complete with Lotto's own initials. Groff's sentences, often not traditional sentences at all but declarative fragments, bring to mind the abrupt, fractured narration found in Annie Proulx's novel "The Shipping News." The list goes on. Sophocles isn't forgotten. Shakespeare finds his way in as well. Whether every association is intentional cannot be divined, but the book only benefits from the richness of discovered - or perceived - echoes and reverberations, running the gamut from the raucously bawdy to the somber. In the end, and from the beginning, Groff has created a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity. A reader might quibble with the occasional word choice that feels forced, or the too convenient turn of a plot point here and there, but before a doubting eyebrow can be fully raised, "Fates and Furies" has you newly absorbed, admiring its next accomplishment. The word "ambitious" is often used as code for "overly ambitious," a signal that an author's execution has fallen short. No such hidden message here. Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and "Fates and Furies" is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers - with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout. Groff's novel is a tale told twice, first from the husband's perspective, then the wife's. ROBIN BLACK is the author of a novel, "Life Drawing," and a story collection, "If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This." "Crash Course," a collection of essays, will be published next spring.

In this surprising and complex love story, Groff (Arcadia) explores the obsessive nature of love. The first half of the novel is told from the viewpoint of the magnetic Lancelot "Lotto" Satterwhite, whose pleasant childhood ends when his wealthy father dies, leaving him and his younger sister in the hands of their unbalanced mother, -Antoinette. After a tortured adolescence spent at a boarding school, Lotto blossoms in college, becoming an acclaimed actor and an eminent womanizer-until he meets the mysterious loner, Mathilde. After the two marry impulsively, Antoinette cuts off Lotto from his inheritance, but he eventually finds fame as a playwright with Mathilde by his side. In the book's second half, we see events from Mathilde's perspective. While in the first section she seems quietly supportive, her character is revealed to have a dark undercurrent of cold calculation, and readers will question everything that has come before. VERDICT Like a classic tragedy, Groff's novel offers high drama, hubris, and epic love, complete with Greek chorus-like asides. A singular and compelling literary read, populated with extraordinary characters; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 3/16/15.]-Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In a swirling miasma of language, plot, and Greek mythology, Groff (Arcadia) weaves a fierce and gripping tale of true love gone asunder. Told in two interwoven parts, the fable-like story of Lancelot (Lotto) and Mathilde's 24-year marriage unfolds, first from Lotto's perspective, then Mathilde's. "Fates," the first part, takes readers through Lotto's mopey years as a failed actor living in "glamorous poverty" in New York City's Greenwich Village, his overnight success as a playwright, his struggles with aging, his perpetually hungry ego, his estrangement from his millionaire mother, and his gleeful infatuation with and dependency on his pale, bewitching wife. Meanwhile, Mathilde's all-consuming adoration for her husband doesn't completely jive with the dark secrets she's hiding from him. Of course, there's always the sex. Groff's prose is variously dewy, defiant, salacious, and bleak-a hurricane of words thrown together on every page. Yet so much of the power in this book lies in what's unspoken-Lotto's bottomless sorrow and self-pity flanked by Mathilde's white-hot rage and, later, her thirst for revenge. There are moments when the writing feels self-indulgent, but, for the most part, it's an intoxicating elixir. Perhaps Groff herself says it best: "It was less a story than a great creature surfacing from the deep; it was more sudden audible wave than narrative." Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.