The Maze at Windermere

knew he had to make a decision, and soon, but in Newport a little of the old life beckoned, and after the semifinals he'd gone to the Champions Ball with the idea of catching on with some of the local wealth (this was Newport, he didn't have to remind Aisha), but the evening had degenerated from the waltz to the bossa nova to the Watusi until the surviving couple dozen partiers the Champions had left a long time ago had gone off barhopping down along Thames Street and ended up at this . . . this . . . he couldn't even remember where they'd ended up but the bozo, the guy with the antique motorcycle, just wouldn't let up.

What he didn't tell her was how that phrase "lacks the killer instinct" had eaten at him for nearly a decade. It came from a year-end issue of Tennis Life, a Future-of-American-Tennis sort of thing about the new crop of guys making the transition to the pro tour. This was back in 2002 and he had just made it, as a freshman no less, to the NCAA Semifinals, and some of the things they had to say were cool. They called him "the Southern Gentleman," said he had an artistry on the court, was well liked in the players' lounge. But that last summing up had seemed to doom him to the hinterland of Almost But Not Quite, which, if he was completely honest, was exactly where he'd spent the decade of his pro career. He had in fact cracked the top fifty (Sandy Alison, 2006, #47 in the world, you can look it up), had made it once to the third round of Wimbledon, twice to the second round of the US Open, had a dozen Challengers titles to his name, the courts back at his Charleston high school name

clarity of voices, flow of history and storytelling, and philosophical reflections had me slowing my pace to stretch out its pleasures.  
Star Tribune

A modern-day epic spanning three centuries and five time periods. It weaves together multiple storylines set in the past and present, handing off each story from one era to the next. . . . The Maze features gay characters, freed and enslaved African-Americans, a Jewish-Portuguese immigrant, and a diversity of others mingling together to produce this dazzling novel.  
The Advocate

It is timely, it is important, it made me cry and sit very still when I finished it, and it is among the best American novels I ve ever read.  
Lit Hub 

The Maze at Windermere is a dramatic and interesting look into the past of a town and the lives of those who ve dwelled in it.  
New York Journal of Books

Dazzling . . . an impressive achievement.
The Emerald City Book Review

A breath of fresh air . . . Windermere succeeds in delivering a full-bodied portrait of the evolution of our very definition of status and what it really means to make it in the New World.
BookBrowse

This novel is, in a word, excellent. . . . Beautifully drawn . . . Gossamer filaments connect these plotlines; duplicity in all its dismaying forms is a major theme, along with the brilliant contrast between substance and shadow, superficiality and depth. There are moments of wry humor, suspense, gut-wrenching human exchange. And through it all, an honesty capturing life as people live it that is made to appear easy, but is very, very difficult to actually achieve in fiction.
Historical Novel Society

It is just so vibrant, so fun, so mesmerizing.
Bill's Books on NBC New York

Gregory Blake Smith s The Maze at Windermere is a dazzling high-wire act. I turned every page with a sense of wonder and excitement.
Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls and Everybody's Fool

The Maze at Windermere is thrilling. This novel restored my faith and made me laugh out loud. It s rare that a novel comes along that is broad ranging, so very funny, profound, provocative, literary, and page-turning, and also word perfect. I went right back to the beginning when I d finished, marveling again at the radiant mind of Gregory Blake Smith.
Jane Hamilton, author of A Map of the World and The Excellent Lombards
 
Not since Beautiful Ruins have I read a novel with such breadth of imagination or depth of heart, nor a cast of characters so real, so varied, so compelling. In five exquisitely braided tales spanning nearly four centuries, Gregory Blake Smith illuminates the everlasting power of our passions and the hazard of our follies in essence, the many ways we mortals strive and yearn toward the center of the maze we each call life. This book is a tour de force: gorgeous, suspenseful, cunning, and wise.
Julia Glass, author of Three Junes
 
The Maze at Windermere is an astonishing book prismatic, continually surprising, daring not only in structure but in its investigation of the human heart. Somehow it manages to be both ruthless and tender. On top of all that, it s wildly, hurtlingly entertaining.
Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others

Compelling . . . The changing language, landscape, and mores of three centuries of American history are depicted with verisimilitude, highlighting what doesn't change at all: the aspirations and crimes of the human heart.  
Kirkus Reviews

Intricately designed and suspenseful . . . Though references to James work, particularly The Portrait of a Lady, abound, readers don t have to be familiar with his novels to relish the well-differentiated voices and worlds or to enjoy the way the novel s five story lines subtly shift and begin to merge.
Booklist (starred review)

Taken individually, each story is dramatic and captivating, but as the author makes ever-increasing connections among the stories and shuffles them all into one unbroken narrative, the novel becomes a moving meditation on love, race, class, and self-fulfillment in America across the centuries.  
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Compelling . . . Award-winning novelist Smith moves nimbly among his tales various settings and diverse characters within the confines of Newport. . . . [An] intricate tale.
Library Journal (starred review)