UNRAVELLING OLIVER
I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.
Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning childrens books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease - until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.
In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couples friends, neighbours, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.
Paperback, A Bit Worse for Wear but Intact and Not Marked
Published January 1, 2014
THE DOUBLE BIND
In Chris Bohjalian's astonishing novel, nothing is what it at first seems. Not the bucolic Vermont back roads college sophomore Laurel Estabrook likes to bike. Not the savage assault she suffers toward the end of one of her rides. And certainly not Bobbie Crocker, the elderly man with a history of mental illness whom Laurel comes to know through her work at a Burlington homeless shelter in the years subsequent to the attack.
In a narrative of dazzling invention, literary ingenuity, and psychological complexity, Bohjalian engages issues of homelessness and mental illness by evoking the humanity that inhabits the core of both. At the same time, his tale is fast-paced and riveting - The Double Bind combines the suspense of a thriller with the emotional depths of the most intimate drama. The breathtaking surprises of its final pages will leave readers stunned, overwhelmed by the poignancy of life's fleeting truths, as caught in Bobbie Crocker's photographs and in Laurel Estabrook's painful pursuit of Bobbie's past - and her own.
384 pages, Paperback. Good Condition
Published October 6, 2008 by Simon & Schuster
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE
Huge American bestselling novel that tells of identical a paranoid schizophrenic and his brother whose life is dominated by his resentment of and love for his damaged twin Dominick. Birdsey's whole existence is coloured by the knowledge that his twin brother can never be fully responsible for his frightening behaviour, while he himself has beaten the biochemical odds to remain sane. But at what cost? This powerful, heart-wrenching drama draws on the deepest human the need to know oneself, responsibility to family, the influence of hidden history. The result is a highly acclaimed novel of survival, written with great sensitivity.
912 pages, Paperback, A Few Loose Pages and Some Water Damage but Still Readable.
Published January 1, 2000 by HarperCollins Publishers
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