Claire Messud

June 1940. As Paris falls to the Germans, Gaston Cassar - honorable servant of France, devoted husband and father, currently posted as naval attache in Salonica - bids farewell to his beloved wife, aunt and children, placing his faith in God that they will be reunited after the war....

Originally published in 1994, When the World Was Steady is award-winning author Claire Messud's first novel....

Friends at Brown University, Marina, Danielle, and Julius are still looking to make their marks as they approach their 30s....

As Julie and Cassie enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship....

A glimpse into a beloved novelist’s inner world, shaped by family, art, and literature....

Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all....

When the Armstrong family moves from New York at the dawn of the 1970s, Australia feels, to Alice Armstrong, like the end of the earth. Residing in a grand manor on the glittering Sydney Harbour, her family finds their life has turned upside down....