Winner of the 2020 Georgia Author of the Year Award!
One of Booklist's Top 10 Books of the Year!
A provocative and timely new novel by the author of Inheriting
Edith, one that will haunt you long after the final page is turned...
Sylvie Snow knows the pressures of expectations: a woman is supposed to
work hard, but never be tired; age gracefully, but always be beautiful;
fix the family problems, but always be carefree. Sylvie does the grocery
shopping, the laundry, the scheduling, the schlepping and the PTA-ing,
while planning her son's Bar Mitzvah and cheerfully tending her
husband, Paul, who's been lying on the sofa with a broken ankle. She's
also secretly addicted to the Oxycontin intended for her husband.
For three years, Sylvie has repressed her grief about the heartbreaking
stillbirth of her newborn daughter, Delilah. On the morning of the
anniversary of her death, when she just can't face doing
one...more...thing: she takes one--just one--of her husband's
discarded pain pills. And suddenly she feels patient, kinder, and
miraculously relaxed. She tells herself that the pills are temporary,
just a gift, and that when the supply runs out she'll go back to her
regularly scheduled programming.
But days turn into weeks, and Sylvie slips slowly into a nightmare. At
first, Paul and Teddy are completely unaware, but this changes quickly
as her desperate choices reveal her desperate state. As the Bar Mitzvah
nears, all three of them must face the void within themselves, both
alone and together.
