November 1, 2024
Mirvis' latest (after Visible City, 2014) is part relationship fiction, part thriller--and much more than it appears to be on the surface. Despite the ugly circumstances surrounding Hailey Gelman's divorce--namely, the anger, the frustration, and the retaliation over moves that soon-to-be-ex-husband Jonah perceives as antagonizing--she is known for her sunny attitude and ready smile. However, when Jonah is murdered, Hailey comes under suspicion. Sherry, Hailey's mother, is firmly on the side of her daughter, as is Hailey's brother Nate, but Solomon, the patriarch of this Jewish family, is keeping secrets that threaten to bring everyone down in the midst of one of the worst times of their lives. Threaded throughout the story of the divorce and sudden murder is the story of a family caught in conflicts between present and past, faith and questioning, and coming to terms with the real meaning of forgiveness, especially during Yom Kippur. Each member of the family must reckon with the flaws hidden in their pasts in order to navigate the danger of the present, and make it into the future.
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November 11, 2024
A divorce leads to murder and puts the victim’s Florida in-laws in the spotlight in the vivid latest from Mirvis (The Book of Separation). In a prologue, Mirvis reveals that during Hailey Marcus Gelman and Jonah Gelman’s protracted and ugly divorce proceedings, Jonah will be fatally shot in his home, and Hailey will become the prime suspect. Much of the novel serves as prelude to the crime, beginning with Hailey visiting her parents in West Palm Beach, Fla. Sherry, the formidable Marcus matriarch, is shocked to learn Jonah is leaving Hailey. Her older brother Nate, who works at the family’s dermatology practice and expects to take over for their aging father, is less surprised by the news. In fact, Nate gave Hailey a “divorce account” in lieu of a wedding present. When Hailey attempts to gain custody of her and Jonah’s daughter, Maya, so she can bring the girl back with her to West Palm, Jonah grows increasingly enraged and punitive. Meanwhile, Nate begins an illicit romance with the office manager whose lowlife boyfriend, together with Sherry, winds up launching a macabre scheme. Mirvis skillfully transforms what could have been a standard whodunit into a penetrating study of a family whose all-consuming love for each other turns sinister. Readers won’t be able to look away. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group.
December 1, 2024
When an author is murdered, his soon-to-be-ex-wife is the number one suspect. "'Here's what we know so far, ' says a reporter standing in the front yard of a blue Victorian house, yellow police tape visible behind her. 'Noted writer and popular professor Jonah Gelman was inside his Binghamton home a block from the SUNY campus when he was shot once in the chest.'" As Mirvis' dark family drama opens, Hailey Gelman is rewatching television coverage of her husband's murder, rereading accusatory comments on social media, and reviewing the events that have brought her and her 6-year-old daughter to a remote cabin outside Bangor, Maine. First, her marriage soured; while she was miserable living far from her family in Florida, Jonah had gotten bored with the sunny--but far less intellectual--woman he had married. "She had no idea that the qualities in her that he was so drawn to would eventually be the ones he came to despise." Then, the divorce moved forward with acrimony and angry emails about custody; when Hailey tried to retreat to her supportive family in Florida, Jonah demanded she return in a week, as promised. The strength of the novel rests on Mirvis' portrait of the Floridian enclave: Hailey's adoring but controlling mother and her stern father and mercurial older brother, doctors whose shared dermatology practice yields some metaphorical pizzazz via disgusting skin conditions. The emphasis here is less on solving the crime than on the characters' moral struggles as they live with the uncertain outcomes of their own decisions and those of the people they love. Propulsive, disturbing, and practically begging for a screen adaptation.
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