“I’m the only one who doesn’t always want answers. It is a condition that materially affects every member of his family, each of whom has a compelling authorial voice in Imagine Me Gone. He and Margaret fight loudly every night, frightening Alec into hiccups. His relationship with Michael is ineffectual. His career, which brought them back to America from Margaret’s preferred life across the pond, has tanked. Arguably, John has never helped his wife Margaret or their three children. What do you do?” Celia wishes for her stronger older brother, or to be stronger, or at the very least for her father to quit play-acting and help them get to shore.īut John doesn’t help. Once they are on the water, John leans back into the boat, closes his eyes and pronounces to his children: “Imagine me gone, imagine it’s just the two of you. Alec, the youngest, is a whiny, clingy child wanting always to be held. Celia is the second-oldest of the three ultra-responsible and caring, if a bit of a bore. On a idyllic day on the Maine water, Imagine Me Gone finds British venture capitalist John takes two of his three children boating. I have Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and Louis Erdrich’s LaRose in my near future. Since then, I’m through Moonglow by Michael Chabon, ✎✎✎/, and Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett. When the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists for Fiction were announced, I’d read only one of the books: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, ✎✎✎✎/, and loved it.
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