Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure - these are things that happen in the Glass Room. High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child. But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events come full-circle.

西濛·莫爾生於1948年，在英國、塞浦路斯和馬耳他度過童年時代，畢業於牛津大學基布爾學院，獲得動物學學位。大器晚成的他39歲纔齣版第一部小說《喀邁拉》，卻一舉奪得瞭麥基特裏剋奬。接二連三齣版瞭幾部作品後，《孟德爾的侏儒》再度奠定瞭他在大西洋兩岸的文學地位，《紐約時報》將這本書描述為一部“有雄心勃勃的主題和詼諧的小說”。

2009年，他受到二十年代建於捷剋城市布爾諾的圖根達特彆墅的啓發，西濛?莫爾創作瞭涵蓋建築、愛情、時代及命運的《玻璃屋》，入選當年布剋奬短名單。2012年，莫爾構思巧妙的驚悚小說《天上掉下的女孩》又為他在歐美文學世界裏贏得瞭不小的贊譽。

雖然筆耕不輟，但是莫爾始終沒有放棄他的專業。在過去的三十年中，他一直跟妻子及兩個孩子居住在意大利，在羅馬教授生物學。