He's Gone: A Novel
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
From National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti comes an intensely gripping story about love, loss, marriage, and secrets—perfect for readers of Jodi Picoult, Kristin Hannah, and Anna Quindlen.
“One of the best books I’ve read all year.”—Barbara O’Neal, author of The Garden of Happy Endings
“What do you think happened to your husband, Mrs. Keller?”
The Sunday morning starts like any other, aside from the slight hangover. Dani Keller wakes up on her Seattle houseboat, a headache building behind her eyes from the wine she drank at a party the night before. But on this particular Sunday morning, she’s surprised to see that her husband, Ian, is not home. As the hours pass, Dani fills her day with small things. But still, Ian does not return. Irritation shifts to worry, worry slides almost imperceptibly into panic. And then, like a relentless blackness, the terrible realization hits Dani: He’s gone.
As the police work methodically through all the logical explanations—he’s hurt, he’s run off, he’s been killed—Dani searches frantically for a clue as to whether Ian is in fact dead or alive. And, slowly, she unpacks their relationship, holding each moment up to the light: from its intense, adulterous beginning, to the grandeur of their new love, to the difficulties of forever. She examines all the sins she can—and cannot—remember. As the days pass, Dani will plumb the depths of her conscience, turning over and revealing the darkest of her secrets in order to discover the hard truth—about herself, her husband, and their lives together.
“A thought-provoking and moving exploration.”—New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister
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PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from National Book Award finalist Caletti (for Honey, Baby, Sweetheart) is an all-in-one-sitting affair. Dani Keller, saddled with an abusive husband and bland suburban neighborhood, leaves her ugly marriage and pretty house. Her exit route is an affair with sympathetic neighbor Ian, which leads to a new life on a houseboat on Seattle's Lake Union. Now married to Ian, the promise of her new life is locked in: a new neighborhood with color and vibrancy, a software company for her hus-band to run, and a sailboat named The New View. One fine morning, Dani wakes up and Ian is gone. From here, Caletti constructs a whodunit with all its attendant police interviews and clue-chasing. Has someone hurt or killed Ian? Did he do this himself? Was it a frantic flight to a new country or a new identity? The author expertly shifts focus from the nitty-gritty of how to find the guy towards a greater investment in probing the psychology of human relationships. Caletti solves the mystery in the end, but more riveting and of greater depth is her second conclusion, that you bring your same self wherev-er you go.
