‘Glassworks’ by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith    (2023) – 354 pages

‘Glassworks’ is an intriguing and endlessly fascinating quirky family saga with one family member of each of four generations involved with working with glass in one form or another.

The first generation takes place in 1910 and centers on Agnes and the Bohemian glass modeler Ignace Novak. Ignace makes delicate glass sculptures of flowers and bees, etc. He has become world famous in his glass artistry, and Agnes brings him over to Boston for her company to sell his sculptures.

Agnes and Ignace. Their first names even rhyme. Except Agnes already has a husband, a mistake.

“Was an unhappy marriage enough to ruin a woman?”

One day when Agnes shows up at his studio with bruised ribs, Ignace tells her,

“He harms you. He is harmful.”

When two people are right for each other as Ignace and Agnes plainly are, a bold solution may be required. The reader will be hooked irretrievably after reading this first section.

In the second generation in 1938, their son Edward installs decorative windows for libraries and other public buildings. Edward only got the job because his boss admired Edward’s father’s work. Edward is clumsy and liable to break any glass he is working with and cut himself in the process. Agnes and Ignace are happily married, away from Boston, and intent on pursuing their own interests; they often forget about Edward. Edward is in quite desperate circumstances until he meets Charlotte.

In the third generation taking place in 1986, Edward and Charlotte’s daughter, simply known as Novak, washes the windows on New York City skyscrapers.

“But Novak also worked with glass. She knew about distributing pressure, about not pushing something so hard it broke.”

Much of this section takes place in a Broadway theater during a performance of the play “Dames in Love”. Novak becomes fascinated with one of the actresses, Cecily, and tries to help her with disastrous results.

“Novak had baptized them in fire, by hurting Cecily the way only family could hurt you.”

The fourth and last section in 2015 focuses on Cecily’s daughter Flip. Flip also works with glass:

“The system” at Solid Memories was simple. Customers sent in cremains – at least three tablespoons – from a loved one or pet. They chose an ornament design and color from the catalog. And they waited to receive a glass sculpture – “not a paperweight,” Martin said; “you gotta be careful with folks on this verbiage” – shot through with the ash of their departed, twirled and pigmented into purposeful abstract designs.”

In each of these four generation stories, our main protagonist or protagonists gets themselves into a desperate situation by virtue of their own defects or wrong turns. The reader becomes heavily involved in their plight to the point where the reader is hanging on to every sentence. Finally our protagonist or protagonists reach some totally unexpected resolution to their plight. These situations that Olivia Wolfgang-Smith creates are like no other I have encountered in fiction. They are unique and wildly inventive.

Grade:   A+