The orphaned son of a wealthy lawyer, Gabriel Gibbs has been entrusted to the care of his older brother Spencer after being kicked out of prep school. In his Greenwich Village apartment Spencer sets out to educate Gabriel in the ways of the world. This education takes the form of late-afternoon soliloquies delivered while Spencer soaks in the tub; private tutoring from Spencer's eccentric friend Beckwith; and aimless afternoons spent in the library, coffee houses, and movie theaters of Manhattan. Thus occupied, Gabriel is ripe for some excitement, and it comes to him in the form of the mysterious Lillian Dawes.

Unlike most of the people Gabriel has met in Manhattan—people who try to appear worldly, wealthy, and gay, when in fact they are disillusioned, narrow-minded, and bored—Lillian Dawes stands out like a fresh cut flower. She is enigmatic without being aloof; sounds intelligent without showing off; and acts kindly to those whom others choose to ignore. Lillian carries with her an air of melancholy that touches Gabriel with its world-weariness, even if he doesn't understand why.

It doesn't take long for Gabriel to become bewitched by this unknowable woman. Unfortunately, he isn't the only man drawn to Lillian. Spencer, too, is swept up in her aura and soon he and Lillian are a couple. Together Spencer and Lillian possess enough charm, good humor, and warmth to light up any room. They complete each other. But Lillian and Spencer aren't completely honest with each other, and the secrets they keep are powerful enough to destroy their relationship.

The Season of Lillian Dawes explores how Gabriel's obsession becomes a life lesson about the difference between appearance and reality, about truth and deception, and about the importance of holding onto one's principles no matter what the cost.

Over time, most of us will relinquish our obsessions with the unknowable other: either because of disappointment, or because we move on. For Gabriel, however, Lillian becomes a symbol that resonates throughout his life. Can these symbols endure? Katherine Mosby leaves us wondering, hoping that they can.

Author questions
Q1. In your second novel you explore the young adult life of a character from your previous novel, Private Altars. Had you always planned to pursue the story of the Daniels family?
A1. Actually, I started the first novel with the idea of writing about Willa Daniels as a young woman in New York but as I came to know her and her circumstances, I realized that her story was so deeply informed by her mother, Vienna's story that that story needed to be told first.

Q2. Many of your readers have read Private Altars, but many will be meeting Lillian for the first time. What kinds of challenges did you encounter writing this novel for both audiences?
A2. One of the ideas I was exploring was the notion that we are, as personalities, in a state of flux, permutating and evolving as time and circumstance shape us. I was reminded of the famous quotation from Heraclitus, "You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." I wanted to examine the difficulties that creates in "knowing" someone. Are we the same person now as in high school, college etc? Are we different people with and to different people and are they all equally true?
    I think that readers encountering a character at a different point in life, in a different place, under wildly different circumstance can assume that they will be seeing new aspects of that character and will need to get to know the character anew, just as in life, when we reconnect with someone as an adult whom we have not seen since childhood. What we know of the past helps add resonance and complexity to our understanding of who they are now and how they got there, but knowing is a verb, and implies an ongoing process. I think that is what is both so rewarding and so frustrating about relationships.

Q3. Melancholy is another predominant mood in this novel which, combined with the shabby gentility of the Gibbs sons, Lillian's tragic past, and the flamboyant, unprincipled lifestyle of Clayton Prather and his crowd, carries echoes of Faulkner and Fitzgerald. Which writers—or works of fiction—have been most influential to your work?
A3. This is a question that writers are often asked, and one which I have generally found surprisingly difficult to answer. I suppose this is partly because as a devoted reader, there are so many different writers to whom one feels indebted and because comparisons are inevitable and odious when invoking the names of the literary idols that have shaped us. I think part of me shrinks from the invitation to link my work with the work of those I revere, while of course, part of me longs to be worthy of such association.
    I have enormous admiration for both Faulkner and Fitzgerald, for the beauty of their use of language as well as for the resonance of their themes. But I also admire Colette and Lampedusa, and Proust,Truman Capote, Jane Austen, Fred Exley and Isak Dinesen, Edith Wharton just to name a few who come readily to mind. And there's the problem: no sooner do you start your list of names before you are overwhelmed by the numbers of others that should or must be mentioned. Before you know it, you sound like you are making an interminable "Oscars Night Acceptance Speech" drowning the listener in a sunami of names. If I had to characterize the writings I have been consistenly drawn to, they tend to be works that prize the lyrical possiblilites of expression as well as those that explore the ambiguities and complexities of relationships, and examine the human condition with an unflinching honesty.

Q4. One of the novel's main characters, Spencer Gibbs, has veered away from his family's traditional callings—law and politics—for the life of a writer, a "fall from grace" that has alienated him from one aunt and endeared him to another. In your own experience, was your decision to become a writer met with any such disapproval, or disappointment, from your family?
A4. My family never disapproved per se of my life as a writer although concerns were voiced from time to time about the difficulty of trying to make a living while I supported my writing habit. I had acclimated my family early on in my childhood to the notion of my becoming a writer. It had always been what I wanted to be when I grew up: not only did I like to make up stories and write poems, collect words and read books, but it was the only job I could think of where you could work in your pajamas if you wanted. And that aspect of it still seems pretty good when compared to all the other forms of work I do that require me to wear panty hose and spend half an hour brushing the cat hair from my clothing to make myself presentable on someone else's time table.

Q5. In addition to writing fiction, you are also a poet. How are the demands and rewards of poetry different from that of fiction? How, in your own work, does one art form influence the other?
A5. One of the biggest differences between working on the two forms is that with poetry, even though you can tinker and tweak a poem forever, you usually have a first draft in a matter of days, or at most weeks, whereas with a novel, it can take months just to get a character through a door, and it might be years before you have a first draft complete. This is a huge difference because not only is there a much longer delay of the gratification of completion but also it means that in fiction, you are working in the dark (as far as the overall shape of the work) for long, frustrating periods of time. It requires a differenct kind of psychic stamina, as well as a huge leap of faith that a) you will eventually achieve completion, and b)it will have been worth the effort. But there is also more latitude in prose, because a poem, precisely because of it's more modest size, demands a precision that cannot accomodate even an extra or imperfect word.

Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the novel is titled "The Season of Lillian Dawes"? What are some of the various meanings for the word season, and how do they pertain to this story?

2. Why did Mosby tell the story through Gabriel, instead of through Lillian or even Spencer? Is he a reliable narrator? Is he, as his name suggests, a "bearer of truth?"

3. Lavinia tells Gabriel, "I've never made a fetish of the truth, my dear . . .. The truth is overrated. It's the refuge of the dull and unimaginative and most of the time it's a big disappointment, while a lie worth telling or well told is, well, a kind of gift." How does this statement apply to Lillian? To Spencer? To Gabriel? How important is the truth to you?

4. Having taken on the role of Gabriel's guardian, Spencer also takes responsibility for his younger brother's education as well as his moral development. Is Spencer a good role model for Gabriel?

5. Why do you think Gabriel is so drawn to Lillian, even before he meets her?

6. After learning about archetypes from Spencer, Gabriel starts to regard all the women he encounters in classical terms, identifying Hadley, for instance, as a witch. The only woman he can't classify is Lillian. Why is that? Does Gabriel's infatuation with Lillian cloud his judgment? Or is she truly extraordinary and beyond classification?

7. Like Lillian, Spencer is the kind of person who draws people to him; they are fascinated with him and seem to like him without even knowing him. What makes him so likeable? If you met Spencer do you think you, too, would be charmed by him?

8. Lillian, it turns out, is a master of tromp l'oeil painting, a style that depicts objects with photographic detail, and which is often used as a transformative method of interior decorating. Why is it significant that Lillian would develop a talent for this kind of artistic expression?

9. After Lillian leaves Clayton's house, Gabriel discovers a scrap of paper on which she has written the words Schadenfreude and Weltschmerz, German terms that have found their way into the English lexicon. Discuss the meanings of these words. What do they mean to Lillian? How do they foreshadow other events in the novel?

10. In Lillian, Aunt Lavinia recognizes a kindred spirit and strives to protect her. Why is this, and why doesn't she reveal Lillian's secret to Spencer and Gabriel?

11. Spencer tells Gabriel that "It is a feature of modernity to be handicapped not by our abilities to do, but by our abilities to see, in the grand sense that renders the fulfillment of meaning. Hence the frustration that leads to decadence, paralysis, and futility." He also says that the cure for this "modern condition" is literature and love. Discuss this passage and its meaning for Gabriel, Lillian, and Spencer. Who of these characters would you characterize as "modern?" And how are each of their lives affected by literature and love?

12. Mosby's characters spend time in venerable Manhattan icons: the Plaza Hotel, Rumpelmeyers, Central Park, even checker cabs. How is New York, a city that Spencer says will "break your heart a thousand times a day," a character in the novel?

13. Discuss the epigraph, a quote from Flaubert. How is it appropriate for this novel?

14. Why does Gabriel, in the novel's first paragraph, describe himself as a witness to a tragedy? What was the tragedy, and whom did it involve?