Alena (2014)

Pastan's third novel casts Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca in the idiosyncratic world of contemporary art. Instead of a naive second wife, our unnamed narrator is a young curator at an avant-garde museum on Cape Cod who competes obsessively against the memory of the previous curator, Alena, who maintains a mysterious hold over the place even after her presumed death. Like a good reproduction, Alena preserves important trademarks of the original art — creepy and claustrophobic — but doesn't feel quite inspired enough to stand on its own. B