Imagine Me Gone - Hardcover

Haslett, Adam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241201217 ISBN 13: 9780241201213

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2016

Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017

A sweeping American drama about the long legacy of mental illness, the bonds of kinship, and the limits of love

Michael is John and Margaret's eldest son. He's a precocious kid, smart and funny, obsessed with books and music.

His sister Celia is the sensible one in the family: tougher than the boys, unshakeably certain about how the world works.

And then there's Alec, the youngest, the most ambitious and also the most sensitive. He grows up in the shadow of Michael's distant coolness and Celia's pragmatic confidence, never quite keeping up with the others.

The children are still living at home when their brilliant, beloved father walks into the woods by their house and take his own life. Years later, one of them will follow him.

How are we damaged by what we inherit? How much can any family give to save one of its own? And how can you tell the difference between what is passed on and what is picked up - between the truly inherited flaw and the self-fulfilling prophecy?

Weaving together the voices of five family members, Adam Haslett imagines how a single isolated tragedy can become the event that defines many lives, unfolding a rich and painful novel that has all the makings of an American classic.

About this title

About the Author

Adam Haslett is the author of the short-story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here, a New York Times bestseller shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the US National Book Award, and the novel Union Atlantic, winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Hamish Hamilton published his latest novel, Imagine Me Gone. His books have been translated into eighteen languages and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, the Financial Times, and Der Spiegel, among others. He lives in New York.

From the Back Cover

'Imagine Me Gone is a beautiful, elegant, harrowing story of the dissonant music of family. Adam Haslett stamps his world with a poignant literary seal. His insight is as lively and as inventive as his language. In his hands the old stories become new. This is a book that makes you eager, once more, for the complications of the world' Colum McCann
'Imagine Me Gone is an extraordinary work of art. The family Adam Haslett has created feels as true and as complex as our own actual families are, and lays nearly as deep a claim upon our love and loyalty. The eldest son, Michael, is simply one of the finest characters I've ever come across in fiction. This beautiful, tragic novel will haunt you for the rest of your life and you will be all the more human for it' Paul Harding
'Imagine Me Gone is literature of the highest order. It manages to be both dreadfully sad and hilariously funny all at once. It is luminous with love' Peter Carey

From the Inside Flap

When Margaret's fiancé is hospital­ized for depression, she faces a choice: carry on with their planned marriage, or back away. She decides to marry him.

Imagine Me Gone is the unforgettable story of what unfolds from this act of love. At its heart is the couple's eldest son, Michael, a brilliant, anxious music fanatic who makes sense of the world through parody. Over the decades, his younger siblings-savvy, responsible Celia and sensitive, meticulous Alec-struggle along with their mother to care for Michael's increasingly troubled and precarious existence.

Weaving together the voices of its five central characters, this bittersweet yet frequently funny novel brings alive the love of a mother for her chil­dren, the inescapable devotion of siblings, and the legacy of a father's pain in the life of a family. It asks the ultimate question: how far will we go to save the people we love the most?

Combining masterful vision with intimate humanity, Adam Haslett proves himself to be one of the most exciting American novelists of his generation.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241201217
• ISBN 13: 9780241201213
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368