Golden State

December 15, 2014
With hints of We Need to Talk About Kevin and loosely based on the Unabomber case of the 1990s, Kegan’s (The Baby) novel shows what can happen when mental illness is left untreated. For 12 years, a string of letter bombs has killed or maimed scores of people in California’s university system, and the identity of the person responsible remains unknown. But when 48-year-old Natalie Askedahl reads the manifesto written by the “Cal Bomber” in the paper and recognizes some of her older brother Bobby’s signature rants against technology and big government, she’s torn between turning him in and protecting him. Soon the FBI gets involved, flubbing their search warrant but nonetheless pinning a solid case on an unrepentant Bobby and unleashing a firestorm of publicity. Meanwhile, Bobby’s family members insist he should plead insanity to escape the death penalty. Though this book has some elements of the best courtroom thrillers—an antihero who seems creepily rational, dramatic tension when Bobby insists on handling his own defense at the final hour—some of the plot developments are more predictable than revelatory (such as a troubling detail from Bobby’s childhood and Natalie’s increasingly rocky marriage). Instead of insight into the mind of a killer, we are left with an all-too-common portrait of a family who should’ve seen it coming but chose to look the other way until it was too late. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary + Media.

December 15, 2014
An upper-middle-class woman's life and marriage are disturbed when she suspects her beloved older brother is a serial bomber in this quiet second novel from Kegan (The Baby, 1990), inspired by the story of David Kaczynski, who turned in his brother for being the Unabomber. The daughter of an old, progressive, politically influential California family, Natalie Askedahl lives comfortably with her lawyer husband and two daughters, the oldest of whom is an academic prodigy. She remains distant from her siblings-sanctimonious hippie sister Sara and recluse brother Bobby, to whom she had once been deeply devoted. Bobby's mathematical genius imploded on itself years ago, and he now lives a life of isolation in a cabin in the wilderness. One day, while examining a paranoid letter from Bobby to their mother, Natalie notices striking similarities to the manifesto of a serial bomber who has been targeting faculty members at California's public universities. After some deliberation, she turns this information over to the FBI. As her family's illusions about Bobby rapidly unravel, Natalie clings to the sweetest memories of her brother and probes at the more painful ones. The uncovered layers are predictable, and none of the revelations feel particularly fresh. Natalie's unease about her brilliant daughter's resemblance to Bobby's young self is present but underexplored, and her marriage troubles hit all the expected beats. She's a milquetoast, though it's not entirely her fault-when she asserts herself and makes her own choices, the other characters unfairly eviscerate her for it. The novel comes most alive when class anxieties and clashing politics surface. "My parents had devoted their lives to the vision of California that my country-club in-laws had proudly voted to undo," she muses in a rare moment of anger. If only there'd been more of them. A novel that strikes all the proper notes but doesn't quite blend them together or inspire.

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February 1, 2015
As Natalie grew up in 1960s California, her family's home was a crossroads of politicians and intellectuals. While her parents were preoccupied with their careers, Natalie found companionship in her brilliant older brother, Bobby. After leaving for college, though, Bobby came home withdrawn, and their relationship was never the same. Forty years later, Natalie is a happily married teacher with two children. When a bomb explodes on a nearby campus, attribution is given to the Cal Bomber, a man notorious for terrorizing institutions across the state to promote his antitechnology agenda. Natalie, reading the bomber's manifesto, finds that it closely resembles the work of her elusive brother. Though her only choice is to alert the FBI, she is unprepared for the ensuing fallout, and as Natalie strives to protect her still-beloved brother, she finds herself also fighting to save her marriage, family, job, and privacy. As Natalie navigates the tricky legal and PR minefields, Kegan asks some difficult moral questions, giving a face to the families of perpetrators and the reality of mental illness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)