The Mineral Palace

Download or read book The Mineral Palace written by Heidi Julavits and published by Virago Press. This book was released on 2002-02-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bena Jonssen believes in omens, good and bad. She has come to see her destiny in the simple arithmetic of everyday life - every random arrangement of numbers (on road signs, calendars, number plates) holds the power either to condemn or console. But Bena's life has been anything but simple since she arrived in Pueblo, Colorado - a bleak, dusty town caught in the grip of the Great Depression. At home, she measures her ailing baby with a tattered hair ribbon - and watches as her marriage crumbles around her. From her office window, she sees a pregnant prostitute with an enigmatic cowboy - and begins to question her deepest beliefs about good and evil. And in the depths of a decaying monument to the local mining industry, she confronts a terrifying secret - and finds that the things she can't measure are the most frightening of all . . .