Ill Will: A Novel

ISBN: 0345476050

Author: Chaon, Dan

Condition: Used

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Two sensational unsolved crimes-one in the past, another in the present-are linked by one mans memory and self-deception in this chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon.Includes an exclusive conversation between Dan Chaon and Lynda BarryNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Wall Street Journal NPR The New York Times Los Angeles Times The Washington Post Kirkus Reviews Publishers WeeklyWe are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves. This is one of the little mantras Dustin Tillman likes to share with his patients, and its meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustins parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.Meanwhile, one of Dustins patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that theres more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries-and putting his own family in harms way.From one of todays most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaons nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.In his haunting, strikingly original new novel, [Dan] Chaon takes formidable risks, dismantling his timeline like a film editor.-The New York Times Book ReviewThe scariest novel of the year . . . ingenious . . . Chaons novel walks along a garrote stretched taut between Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock.-The Washington Post