Kate learns that her daughter, Amelia, has been suspended from school. Upon her arrival, she finds the school surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.

Kate learns that her daughter, Amelia, has been suspended from school. Upon her arrival, she finds the school surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land, she becomes entangled with two very different men --- one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals.

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land, she becomes entangled with two very different men --- one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals.

In 18th-century Paris, Jacob Cerf is a Jew, a peddler of knives, saltcellars and snuffboxes. Despite a disastrous teenage marriage, he is determined to raise himself up in life. More than 200 years later, Jacob is amazed to find himself reincarnated as a fly in the Long Island suburbs of 21st-century America. Thanks to his arrival, the lives of a reliable volunteer fireman and a young Orthodox Jewish woman nursing a secret ambition will never be the same.

In 18th-century Paris, Jacob Cerf is a Jew, a peddler of knives, saltcellars and snuffboxes. Despite a disastrous teenage marriage, he is determined to raise himself up in life. More than 200 years later, Jacob is amazed to find himself reincarnated as a fly in the Long Island suburbs of 21st-century America. Thanks to his arrival, the lives of a reliable volunteer fireman and a young Orthodox Jewish woman nursing a secret ambition will never be the same.

JACOB’S FOLLY is a rollicking, ingenious, saucy book, brimful of sparkling, unexpected characters, that takes on desire, faith, love, acting --- and reincarnation.

In 18th-century Paris, Jacob Cerf is a Jew, a peddler of knives, saltcellars and snuffboxes. Despite a disastrous teenage marriage, he is determined to raise himself up in life, by whatever means he can. More than 200 years later, Jacob is amazed to find himself reincarnated as a fly in the Long Island suburbs of 21st-century America, his new life twisted in ways he could never have imagined. But even the tiniest of insects can influence the turning of the world, and thanks to his arrival, the lives of a reliable volunteer fireman and a young Orthodox Jewish woman nursing a secret ambition will never be the same.

Through the unique lens of Jacob’s consciousness, Rebecca Miller explores change in all its different guises --- personal, spiritual, literal. The hold of the past on the present, the power of private hopes and dreams, the collision of fate and free will: Miller’s world --- which is our own, transfigured by her clear gaze and by her sharp, surprising wit --- comes brilliantly to life in the pages of this profoundly original novel.