Gone: A Novel

Description

From the editor of the New York Times bestselling essay anthology The Bitch in the House and the novel Sweet Ruin comes a heart-pounding drama about a woman who must hold her family together after her husband disappears. Called "beautiful, complicated, and often funny" by O, The Oprah Magazine, "clear-eyed" by Vanity Fair, and "rich with relatable characters" by Kirkus Reviews, Cathi Hanauer's stirring novel is about redefining, in middle age, one's marriage, one's career, and even one's role as parent and friend. For fourteen years, Eve Adams has worked part-time while raising her two children and emotionally supporting her sculptor husband, Eric. Now, at forty-two, she has a growing private nutritionist practice and a book deal, and Eric's once-thriving career has hit a slump. When he simply does not come home one night, Eve is forced to shift her family in possibly irreparable ways and to realize that competence in one area of life doesn't always keep things from unraveling in another.

Cathi Hanauer is the author of the novels My Sister's Bones and Sweet Ruin and the editor of the New York Times bestselling essay anthology The Bitch in the House. Her articles, essays, and/or criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Elle, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Self, Parenting, Whole Living, and other magazines. She lives with her family in western Massachusetts. Visit her online at CathiHanauer.com.

"""Cathi Hanauer succeeds beautifully in creating a story that will make you care and keep turning the pages to discover what will happen to this family, all the while rooting for them." --Dani Shapiro, national bestselling author of "Devotion "and "Black & White" ""Gone" is about the big things--love and death and work and children--and it treats them all with freshness and acuity. Hanauer draws her characters with real generosity and with insight about the pitfalls of contemporary life. It's a compelling, big-hearted book." --Joshua Henkin, author of "The World Without You "and "Matrimony" "Cathi Hanauer is a great chronicler of modern love and life, who has created, in the pages of "Gone", the beautiful, intricate story of a beautiful, intricate marriage. This novel will resonate with anyone who has ever been married--which is to say, it will resonate with anyone who has ever struggled to reconcile love against ambivalence, loyalty against the lure of solitude, and domestic fidelity against the call of the open road." --Elizabeth Gilbert, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Committed" "Cathi Hanauer's new novel "Gone "picks up ten years down the road from "The Bitch in the House", her groundbreaking, best-selling 2002 anthology of marital rage, domestic wrangling, and passion (or lack thereof). This is a gorgeous, wrenching book, a literary feat." --Kate Christensen, Pen Faulkner Award-winning author of "The Astral" and "The Great Man" "Hanauer's crisp examination of a troubled family keenly depicts the mercurial nature of contemporary marriage and parenthood." --"Booklist" "Trust Cathi Hanauer to write such a touching, funny, smart book about the way families and marriage both gird and choke a life. The husband and wife here, a sensitive and spirited pair, each yearn for freedom as they still fully embrace the bonds that tether them to one another. It's that earthly paradox that Hanauer understands so deeply and executes so beautifully in her latest, greatest novel." --Helen Schulman, "New York Times "bestselling author of "This Beautiful Life" "Lose yourself in Cathi Hanauer's "Gone", the tension-filled tale of a woman who becomes a single mother when her husband vanishes after driving the babysitter home." --"Shape" Magazine ("Summer's Best Reads") ""Gone" offers a clear-eyed vision of what is gained and lost in a contemporary marriage when the wife and mother begins gaining power outside the home." --"Vanity Fair" "Beautifully complicated and often funny, Cathi Hanauer's "Gone" asks the question many long-marrieds barely dare to contemplate: What would you do if your husband left to drive the babysitter home and just never came back?" --"O" Magazine "Hanauer delivers a novel that is rich with relatable characters, realistic in its approach and highly readable." --"Kirkus Reviews"