What Could Be Saved
A Novel
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4.1 • 127 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
When a mysterious man claims to be her long-missing brother, a woman must confront her family’s closely guarded secrets in this “delicious hybrid of mystery, drama, and elegance” (Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
Washington, DC, 2019: Laura Preston is a reclusive artist at odds with her older sister Beatrice as their elegant, formidable mother slowly slides into dementia. When a stranger contacts Laura claiming to be her brother who disappeared forty years earlier when the family lived in Bangkok, Laura ignores Bea’s warnings of a scam and flies to Thailand to see if it can be true. But meeting him in person leads to more questions than answers.
Bangkok, 1972: Genevieve and Robert Preston live in a beautiful house behind a high wall, raising their three children with the help of a cadre of servants. In these exotic surroundings, Genevieve strives to create a semblance of the life they would have had at home in the US—ballet and riding classes for the children, impeccable dinner parties, a meticulously kept home. But in truth, Robert works for American intelligence, Genevieve finds herself drawn into a passionate affair with her husband’s boss, and their serene household is vulnerable to unseen dangers in a rapidly changing world and a country they don’t really understand.
Alternating between past and present as all of the secrets are revealed, What Could Be Saved is an unforgettable novel about a family broken by loss and betrayal, and “a richly imagined page-turner that delivers twists alongside thought-provoking commentary” (Kirkus Reviews).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Schwarz's superb sophomore novel (after The Possible World), an American family's young boy goes missing in Thailand and resurfaces decades later. During the Vietnam War, Robert Preston works as a spy for the U.S. government and moves his family to Bangkok in 1972 under the pretense that he's designing a dam. His resentful wife, Genevieve, begins an affair, and after their youngest child, Philip, disappears, the Prestons return to America with their other two daughters. All except Genevieve assume he's dead, and Genevieve repeatedly returns to search for him. Forty-seven years later, Bea is aghast when her younger sister, Laura, travels to Bangkok in hopes of retrieving Philip, having received an email from a man who claims to have found him. The question of whether the man Laura returns with is their brother remains open for much of the book. The sisters are reluctant to press Philip for details about his disappearance and wonder how to break the news to Genevieve, who now has dementia. Schwarz is a remarkable storyteller, juggling many characters, and the seamless alternating chapters narrated by Laura and a servant from the Preston's house in Bangkok gradually deepen the reader's understanding of the past and present. Schwarz's stellar work is riveting from its start all the way to the final horrifying twist.
Customer Reviews
Phenomenally thrilling yet harrowing story
When an American family goes to Bangkok for their father/husbands job, their year contract rolls into 2…then 3…and 4 trying and exhausting YEARS the wife and mother, Genevieve is at her wits ends with the years they’ve been living in a country that isn’t remotely close to somewhere she or her family can acclimate to after some time, their 4 years have proven to her that much and she also is concerned about when or if her husband can even get them home. He brought her there under the pretense that a company that was subcontracted by government had been hired to design and over see the build of the dam had given her husband the engineering job and he would design as well as oversee the project. For 4 years she had served as the welcome and support head of the new family’s arriving to Bangkok who also worked with the company her husband did. Most of those family’s were there the promised year with the exception of her family and one other, that her friend Irene’s husband was also the head of his department and that it seemed the executives in place would be required to remain there until completed yet when either wife asked their husbands if the build had begun or how far along it was and how much longer would they have to stay they got dubious responses and they couldn’t say how much longer it would take that they’d reached a glitched or had government halting the plans and processing of the project due to their regulations and large turnover of employees at the Bangkok building dept. but after 4 yrs the wives knew their husbands were most certainly working for CIA or some black ops and they were losing their hope of ever getting their family back to US whole. She had to decide what she and kids leaving would mean and if she would be able to do that if he declined her request. Amidst all this tension and parental issues as well as their selfish tendencies that would leave the kids being predominantly raised by staff and driven to their activities and school by the driver and brought to docs and other appointments by #3. It was fair to say their mother who’s job was a homemaker had not been doing her job upon arrival and the sting of staff at her disposal and the kids had begun to unravel at the slow but steady withdrawal of their parents from their lives and when Philip has gone missing, it will be Noi#3 who knows immediately that it’s emergency and he was left at Judo as neither parent spends more than 1/2 hour usually a drive to and from wherever they are getting their kids from in the case that dad is close to judo and mom has driver for herself. Noi had to go to where she knew madame would be and it wasn’t because Madame told her. On the risk of losing job, she rushed to the place informs Madame that Philip is missing that Mr Preston had just arrived home and said that he didn’t have him he thought the driver was getting him but driver never come back to house and Noi as well as Madame know instinctively and both intuit something horrible has occurred and it does:
50 yrs later; Laura gets word her missing brother is alive and in the hands of someone named Claude and needed in Bangkok to get him. Will she? Is it even her brother? Read it- well worth the twists and turns and harrowing experiences through the eyes of each character and what they’d gone through during those years and the shock of who is was responsible for the sale and how the revelation is brought to light will leave the shocked shook long after book is finished.
Great story!
Great book- slow start.
Beware
This book has child sex abuse in it and child neglect. It’s ugly.