The Palisades: A Novel

By: Gail Lynn Hanson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Dorothy Fiske, eighty-three, adores movie stars, jewelry, murder mysteries, and men. At twenty-five, inspired by Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury, she moved to Los Angeles from a religiously strict Midwestern home. Despite the glamour, Dorothy, heartbroken, was childless. She blamed her sweet, unambitious husband, Eugene, claiming his sperm was weak, but Dorothy knows the truth. Ruth, a sixty-six-year-old home health aide, fears eviction from her LA apartment due to her unusual, antisocial behavior. Previously fired from a nursing facility for residents dying under her care, Ruth targets Dorothy, a widow from a wealthy family in Pacific Palisades, California. Lonely yet prideful, Dorothy hires Ruth as a "lady's maid." Ruth accepts the position and masterfully entwines herself into Dorothy's life because she wants to live in Dorothy's house, alone.The Palisades is a deliciously spun psychological suspense brimming with dark humor in which two women develop a peculiar relationship amid a miasma of Ruth's disturbing memories and Dorothy's pervasive delusions of old Hollywood. Poverty and privilege mingle, companionship turns bizarre, and identity is questioned as the women desperately try to fulfill their shared yearning for motherhood.