Few writers can enter their characters so completely or evoke their
lives as viscerally as Andre Dubus III. In this deeply compelling new
novel, a father, estranged for the worst of reasons, is driven to seek
out the daughter he has not seen in decades.
Daniel Ahearn lives a quiet, solitary existence in a seaside New England
town. Forty years ago, following a shocking act of impulsive violence on
his part, his daughter, Susan, was ripped from his arms by police. Now
in her forties, Susan still suffers from the trauma of a night she
doesn't remember, as she struggles to feel settled, to love a man and
create something that lasts. Lois, her maternal grandmother who raised
her, tries to find peace in her antique shop in a quaint Florida town
but cannot escape her own anger, bitterness, and fear.
Cathartic, affirming, and steeped in the empathy and precise
observations of character for which Dubus is celebrated, Gone So Long
explores how the wounds of the past afflict the people we become, and
probes the limits of recovery and absolution.