Isola is inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, and is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival. 

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.

Allegra Goodman’s books include Sam, The Family Markowitz, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. 

Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In our conversation Allegra will tell us about what it was like growing up in a traditional Jewish household in Honolulu. We’ll hear about her fascination with shtetl life and how her novel Kaaterskill Falls, about an orthodox community in upstate New York, was inspired by George Eliot. And she’ll tell us about the secret Jewish character in her new book, Isola.

Allegra Goodman’s’ Five Books:

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