Familiar

August 6, 2012
A woman falls into an alternate version of her life but fails to convince anyone that her life was ever different in this stealthy and thought-provoking literary thriller. While on her annual pilgrimage to Wisconsin to visit her son Silas’s grave, Elisa Brown discovers, in a blink, that she’s wearing unfamiliar clothes and driving an unfamiliar car en route to an academic conference, where she is known as the graduate studies coordinator for a biotech center at an upstate New York university. It seems she’s exchanged her lab job for a less intellectual role; her “habitual, practical, inert” union with Derek is now a loving relationship (due to counseling, it turns out). And Silas did not die in a car accident, but he and his brother, Sam, are estranged from their parents and living in California, for reasons Derek won’t discuss. With no one to confide in about her growing sense of alienation and unease, Elisa seeks out specialists in alternate universes in her old field while going through the motions of her new routine. Lennon (Castle) succeeds by setting his odd, uncommon narrative in intimate terms that delve into Elisa’s sense of confusion. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic.

September 1, 2012
Lennon's (Castle, 2009, etc.) latest literary effort chronicles Elisa Macalaster Brown's life as it quantum-shifts into a parallel universe. At some random midtrip interval, with Elisa wending her way homeward from her annual pilgrimage to the grave of her son, Silas, dead in an auto accident at age 15, she morphs into a different version of the same person. No longer a spare, contained woman in cutoff jeans driving her familiar Honda Accord, Elisa becomes more voluptuous, more properly dressed, apparently in midtrip in a new car on her way home from a professional conference. And Silas isn't dead, which she'll soon learn. But there is this: All that has been a barrier to peace and contentment remains. She is still the mother who "has created a family of miserable loners who seem incapable of helping one another." Silas' death had forced Elisa to confront love in all its forms and contours, but now she faces a world where all seems nearly identical, except that Silas and his brother, Sam, are grown men estranged from their parents. The book unfolds slowly in first person, present tense, providing the deepening intimacy necessary to examine how Elisa comes to believe she has shifted to an alternate universe. And as the story develops in her new world within her new self, the new Elisa grows "increasingly frightened ... by the possibility that she might now be sent back against her will, in an instant, the same way she got here." While Silas' every action reveals him as near sociopathic, it is Derek, Elisa's husband, who best serves as both foil and catalyst. Approaching the complex internal story without postmodern irony, Lennon has a gift for stretching the borders of character. A surrealistic tale about the enigma to be found in second chances.

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Starred review from September 1, 2012

In the remarkable opening of this latest novel from Lennon (Castle), Elisa Brown is driving home from a visit to her son Silas's grave when suddenly everything changes. Her clothes are different, and she arrives home to a life that's familiar but dramatically altered. Same husband, same children--suddenly, Silas is alive--but everything is different, including herself. She even has a new job and finds her marriage both happier and stranger than she remembered. So Elisa goes about fending her way through a life she is certain is not her real one. If she is living this life, who is living her other one? Why and how has this happened to her? Has she had a psychotic break, or are there parallel worlds? Whether she wants to or not, Elisa must push the limits of the known to follow a path like a Mobius strip where little is as it seems and every move challenges the previous and the subsequent ones. VERDICT Stunning, convoluted, and compelling, this thoroughly mesmerizing work is recommended for discerning readers who savor an unusual story brilliantly presented.--Joyce Townsend, Pittsburg, CA

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2012
Returning from her annual pilgrimage to her son Silas' grave, Elisa Brown is suddenly struck by a sense that things have changed. The car she is driving isn't hers, her body has transformed, and in the seat next to her sits a conference binder addressed to a Lisa Brown. The old Elisa's son died at age 15; she was having an extramarital affair; and she was very close to her living son, Sam. This new Lisa is estranged from both of her children and lives in quiet tension with her husband in a home devoid of life. As the old Elisa tries to parse out what has happened to her, she discovers that her new reality is as sad and complicated as her previous life, and she begins to feel trapped between both worlds. Readers who enjoyed Lennon's previous novel Castle (2009) will see some common themes here, as Elisa questions her own understanding of reality and memory and tries to unravel the emotional mystery that surrounds both of her lives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)