Elizabeth McKenzie

Elizabeth McKenzie's debut novel, MacGregor Tells the World, releases today.

About the book, from the author's website:

An inventive and dazzling debut novel -- at once a mystery of identity, sly literary satire and coming of age story -- capturing a young man's impossible and heroic first love. Macgregor West, orphaned as a boy, is on quest to understand the mystery surrounding his mother’s untimely death. On a foggy San Francisco evening, guided by a stack of old envelopes, Mac finds himself at the mansion of cultural icon Charles Ware and encounters the writer’s beautiful and enigmatic daughter, Carolyn. Soon Mac is seduced into the world of the eccentric Ware family and a love affair with a woman whose murky history may be closely linked to his own.

MacGregor Tells the World is a poignant and hilarious ride through present day San Francisco, a city brimming with memorable characters who help Mac discover just what story is his to tell.

Here's part of a Q & A with the author:

Q: MacGregor Tells the World is very different from your first book (Stop That Girl), and reveals an impressive range. How did you come up with the premise for it? It’s so intricately conceived and layered.

I started with a confined idea — a young man enters a relationship over the course of one foggy summer in San Francisco — and discovers that the woman’s entanglement with her family and her past proves impenetrable. I also knew this guy — MacGregor West — would have unresolved issues about his own origins. So we’d have people from two different social worlds to start with; and then, I wanted the whole “canvas” of San Francisco covered, from the Mission to Pacific Heights, down the peninsula to the consumption-class burbs. even the leftover hippie vibe of Bolinas. I’m not saying this is War and Peace, but I had big ideas for it that excited me.

Read the entire Q & A.

The Page 69 Test: MacGregor Tells the World.

--Marshal Zeringue