The Tattooed Heart & My Name Is Rose

The Tattooed Heart finds June Grey dreaming a summer alone with her grandmother in a large isolated house at Grey’s Neck on the Long Island shore. Wooded hills surround the house and gives way to beach and sea. It is there she meets Ronny, a young man still firmly anchored in the fantasies of childhood. The young couple becomes cruelly caught in the complicated motives and desires of their elders as their erotic summer draws to a close.

My Name Is Rose is an equal mix of journal entry and conventional narrative. Keogh’s novel is an unwavering ＂examination of conscience＂ by a young wife whose marriage is breaking up after seven years. Original in perception, story, and a highly personal idiom, My Name is Rose is an enthralling work alive with the mystery and pulsating quality of life.

Theodora Keogh, the granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, wrote nine novels between 1950 and 1962. A complicated and captivating prose stylist, her work has been compared with that of Patricia Highsmith for its psychological depth and complex, often morally conflicted characters. Appearing as they did midway in her brief career, these two novels provide a wonderful introduction to this overlooked author.

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of Dora: A Headcase, and The Chronology of Water, as well as three works of short fiction. Her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She received the 2011 Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award. She lives in Portland.