NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"An absolutely unforgettable novel."—Ian Williams
A masterwork from one of the country’s most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that grapples with male violence, sexual abuse, and madness. Complusively readable and heartstopping.
Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John’s, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he en­counters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers.
Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daugh­ters, each in their own way a wounded soul. The old­est, Gloria, has a string of broken marriages behind her. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner dealer husband can lay his hands on. Betha­ny, the most sardonic of the sisters, is fighting a los­ing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads
The Diary of Anne Frank
obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond—an obsession that has deeper and more dis­turbing roots than Wade could ever have imagined.
Confronting the central mystery of his character Rachel’s life—and his own—Wayne Johnston has created a brilliant and searing tour de force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to fore­see.