![]() The story he spins here is so richly wrinkled that readers may find themselves engaged to a point of near-anger, hopelessly wishing for a different ending even though the ending has been clear from page one. Haslett loves these characters: every sentence shows it. From Back Bay Books: From a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, a ferociously intimate story of a family facing the ultimate question: how far. Michael’s witty, wry observations underscore the often absurd attempts of the family to come together and heal. The feeling of dread made me put the book down for a couple of days until I felt ready to forge on. The opening scene is a flashback to a death, hinting at a suicide. When Michael’s over-medicated lifestyle becomes unsustainable, the family conspires to help him start anew–while on some level understanding all along that his fate may already be sealed.Įach family member in Imagine Me Gone is flawed and fumbling each is relentlessly searching even when the objective is unclear. Imagine Me Gone explores the devastating toll of mental illness on both the sufferers and the loved ones who care for them. To everyone’s frustration and horror, eldest sibling Michael seems to be following in John’s footsteps. ![]() They are archetypes such as: the concerned but fragile mother, the depressed. Those who survive him–his children, Michael, Alec, and Celia and his wife, Margaret–spend the rest of their lives with this loss as the centerpiece of their interactions and ambitions. My main problem with the book is that all of the characters feel like stereotypes. ![]() At the heart of the family in this wrenching novel is a tragedy: the patriarch, John, suffering from severe depression, kills himself when his three children are young. ![]()
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