A Brief Lunacy
A Novel
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An elderly couple is taken captive in a psychological thriller that "coils tighter and tighter until the tension is almost unbearable" (Tess Gerritsen).
Jessie and Carl have made a terrible mistake. When Jonah came to their cabin in the Maine woods, asking to use the phone, they should never have let him in. But he told them his campsite had been robbed and he was stranded with no money and no gear. Jessie took pity on him. She was thinking about her own missing schizophrenic daughter, and hoping she was receiving the same kindness—wherever she was.
They invite him in, share their dinner with him, and offer him a bed for the night. They soon discover that this stranger at their table knows all about them, all about their troubled daughter, and all about the secrets they haven't revealed to each other during forty years of marriage. By morning, they realize the young man has no intention of leaving . . .
"A sober, wrenching literary thriller . . . The dark suspense in this concentrated psychological character study makes for a genuine page-turner." —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An act of kindness leads to horrors in a sober, wrenching literary thriller. Carl and Jessie, a long-married and loving couple, are enjoying a quiet retirement in their isolated Maine house. Their one real worry is their schizophrenic, institutionalized daughter, Sylvie, who one day calls to say that she has run away from her facility. As the couple worries about Sylvie, a young man calling himself Jonah appears, claiming that his camping gear was stolen from a nearby site. Ignoring Carl's wariness, Jessie offers Jonah a bed for the night; Jonah responds by taking them hostage in their home. Jonah, they eventually learn, is Sylvie's boyfriend from the facility, a schizophrenic who plays a torturous series of psychological games with the couple that bring dark family histories to light. Thayer (Strong for Potatoes; A Certain Slant of Light) underplays the more lurid aspects of her story line, choosing instead to generate tension with dialogue and taut, well-crafted scenes as Carl and Jessie try to escape and Jonah's behavior careens toward deadly violence. Sylvie's eerie presence hovers in the background throughout, and the climax features a revelation about Carl that completely changes Jessie's impression of her protective, gentle husband. The dark suspense in this concentrated psychological character study makes for a genuine page-turner.
