"An intimate, vivid, and deeply felt novel."
Description
A literary novel about grief, inheritance, and the quiet ways the past shapes the structures we build—and the ones we must rebuild.
In Restoration, an American architect travels to rural England in 1984 to restore a centuries-old barn, only to discover that the project will require far more than architectural skill. As hidden family histories emerge through letters, memories, and the landscape itself, she must confront the truths her family buried long ago.
What does it mean to rebuild something that time has nearly erased?
In 1984, an American architect travels to rural England to oversee the restoration of a centuries-old barn. The assignment promises professional challenge and a welcome escape from the unresolved tensions of her life at home.
But the work quickly becomes something more complicated.
As she begins uncovering the building’s layered history—old foundations, forgotten rooms, and the stories embedded in its beams—letters from the past begin to surface, revealing a family history she never fully understood. The deeper she goes into the restoration, the more the project begins to mirror her own reckoning with grief, inheritance, and identity.
Set against the quiet beauty of the English countryside, Restoration is a richly textured literary novel about the ways the past lives inside the structures we inherit—both the physical ones we restore and the emotional ones we carry with us.
For readers of literary fiction that explores family, place, and memory, Restoration is a moving meditation on the long process of rebuilding a life.
Reviews
Restoration beautifully, movingly reminds us that we may have to go backward before we can move forward; and that even our oldest, most formative beliefs about ourselves may not contain the full truth. Carol Davis has written a lyrical debut novel of uncommon emotional depth, power, and wisdom.
In this luminous debut novel, Carol Davis uses the language of historic preservation to explore family trauma, memory, and healing. With a nuanced understanding of how building materials embody layers of memory and meaning, she reveals the act of repair as a powerful model for mending what has been broken in ourselves and those we love.
In Restoration, Carol Davis provides an authentic and unwavering portrayal of the enormous depths that exist between mothers and daughters, lovers and friends. What a beautifully written story, told with the keenest and fondest eye for architecture, for San Francisco, and for what it means to love someone no matter what.
