Watch the trailer for Elizabeth Gilbert’s upcoming book
Elizabeth Gilbert became a literary star after publishing “Eat, Pray, Love,” her 2006 memoir of looking for verities of the heart and mind in far-flung places.
In a slight departure, her forthcoming novel, “The Signature of All Things,” set in the 19th century, will be about the curious daughter of a famous botanist who spends her time studying moss and “begins to unravel some of the central mysteries of revolution.”
The 500-plus page book won’t be published until October, but Viking on Monday released a polished trailer for the novel, which the publisher surely hopes will do better than 2010’s “Committed,” a book about marriage that was generally less well received than the memoir that propelled Gilbert to prominence.
In the trailer, she walks around the mansion that served as inspiration for the novel’s setting. “I know there are very few greater pleasures in life than to be completely subsumed by the work you’re obsessed with,” Gilbert says, discussing her heroine, Alma Whitaker. “That is completely who she is, and that is totally based on me.”
Gilbert continues, “It’s not enough for me to hear about something or read about something, I want to know it in my bones, I wanted to roll around in the world I’m inventing.”
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