A Flaw in the Design
‘A psychological thriller par excellence’ Guardian
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3.8 • 15 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'Absorbing and original . . . A very smart tale packed with jeopardy' Daily Mail
'Keeps you guessing till the very end' The Times
'An absolute page-turner' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
He's in your house. He's in your family. Or is he in your mind?
Gil has been estranged from his sister ever since her obnoxious son tried to drown his daughter on a family holiday. That's Gil's interpretation; his sister thinks Matthew was just playing around.
Or did. When she and her husband perish in a car crash, Gil becomes Matthew's legal guardian. Matthew is now an urbane 17-year-old, raised on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a planet away from rural Vermont, where Gil lives with his wife and daughters, teaching at the local university.
At first, Matthew appears to have changed, but when he joins Gil's writing class, he submits a story detailing the various ways a character resembling Gil's youngest daughter might die. While Gil believes he has invited a psychopath to live under his roof, the women in his life are impressed by Matthew's intelligence and charm. Is Gil losing his mind, or are his family in desperate danger?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this gripping psychological thriller from Oates (The Empty House), 17-year-old Matthew's wealthy Manhattanite parents have died in a suspicious car accident, and the newly orphaned high school senior goes to live with his uncle Gil and Gil's family in Vermont. Gil is uneasy about this arrangement: as a boy, Matthew stood by as Gil's daughter nearly drowned in a pool; Matthew cursed viciously at his French nanny; and even his mother admitted Matthew had difficulties. However, Gil, a creative writing professor, has stalled in his career, is badly in debt, and has reasons to be jealous of this handsome, often charming young man with a multimillion-dollar trust fund. So the question that drives the narrative is whether Gil projects his own hostility onto Matthew, or whether Matthew is a sociopath who has killed his parents for the inheritance. Meanwhile, Matthew writes disturbing stories about his family for Gil's class, setting Matthew and Gil on a collision course. This immersive page-turner cleverly juxtaposes the writing of short fiction with the production of stories in people's minds. Oates is definitely a writer to watch.
