WhenVera decides to travel to an old house in the New England countryside for amonth-long escape from some devastating news about her daughter, Cassie, shehas no idea her life is about to change forever. It begins innocently enough-peeling the oldwallpaper from the walls as a favor to the house's owner. What she discovers underneath-written in India ink on the very walls of the house by a woman named Beth, in1919-is the beginning of the reader's unsettling crossing into the unknownworld underneath the paper. The Writingon the Wall is a brilliantly realized journey into the connected lives ofthree women whose stories span a century, linked by the house they all brieflyinhabit, and by the tragedies they've had to endure. Andit's not just their own stories that reveal themselves. A brilliantschoolteacher, back from the war in the trenches, finds the pupils of hisdreams. A young Vietnam draftee makes a stubbornly quirky separate peace. Themoody, dangerously charismatic leader of a commune becomes the unlikeliest ofheroes. An ordinary housewife's lonely battle propels her onto the nationalstage. A girl sent to Iraq tries making sense of the chaos and the pain. The Writing on the Wall is about storiesthat can't be told, but must be told-about secrets that can't be shared, butmust be shared-and the surprising ways people find to confront the truth.