June 1940. As Paris falls to the Germans, Gaston Cassar - honourable 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. But escaping the violence of that cataclysm is not the same as emerging unscathed. The family will never again be whole.
A work of breathtaking historical sweep and vivid psychological intimacy, This Strange Eventful History charts the Cassars' unfolding story as its members move between Salonica and Algeria, the US, Cuba, Canada, Argentina, Australia and France - their journeys shaped as much by a search for an elusive wholeness, as by the imperatives of politics, faith, family, industry and desire.
'Claire Messud is a magnificent storyteller, and the novel, an all-encompassing history of many human hearts and any human heart, will linger and haunt us as the best and the most heartbreaking memory' Yiyun Li
'Claire Messud captures the heartbreaking paradoxes of being in our world and in ourselves yet feeling separated from both with a precision and acuity like no other writer I know' Paul Harding
'An astonishment - rich and luminous, dense with life, wide with wisdom... Just exquisite' Ayad Akhtar
'An engrossing tale with dizzying sweep, and beautifully written' Lionel Shriver