Now You See Him: A Novel

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 272 pages
• Published by: William Morrow January 22, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0061284645
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0061284649
• Book Dimensions: 8 x 4.6 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 12 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A mesmerizing blend of suspense and long-buried family secrets, Gottlieb's second novel (after 1997's The Boy Who Went Away) culminates in shocking revelations that rock a quiet upstate New York town. Nick Framingham is still reeling from the recent death of his childhood best friend, the writer Rob Castor, who committed suicide after killing his ex-girlfriend in Manhattan. Nick's own marriage to his college sweetheart, Lucy, begins to unravel as he struggles to understand what drove Rob to murder. Rekindling an old relationship with his first love, Belinda, Rob's volatile and gorgeous sister, Nick begins to retrace not only Rob's last days but also their shared childhood, looking for clues to explain his friend's actions. Gottlieb skillfully ratchets up the suspense by doling out the details of Rob's death in bits and pieces, until everything falls into place in a startling conclusion that will rattle even the genre's most experienced readers. With his pitch-perfect dialogue and flawed yet empathetic characters, Gottlieb's sophomore effort should win him widespread recognition. (Feb.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Eli Gottlieb’s suspenseful second novel looks intensely at the bonds of male friendship. Hailed as “the work of a master” (Denver Post) and “a brilliant work of art” (Charlotte Observer), Now You See Him is propelled by its stark, lucid language and skillfully drawn characters. Nick’s grief and confusion are genuinely moving, and readers will easily sympathize with his long-suffering wife and family. Though the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun thought the novel overwritten and predictable in places and Entertainment Weekly claimed it devolved into the realm of the soap opera toward the end, most critics praised it as a poignant and compelling account of lives torn apart by secrets, lies, and madness.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Reader Reviews
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) One of the words that always raises red flags for me when reading book descriptions is "literary". While there's every chance that the book may be good, there's an equally good chance that a literary novel will be pretentiously unreadable. The back of my copy of Eli Gottlieb's Now You See Him has a quote from Ann Patchett describing the book as a "literary page-turner", an indication that the two things are definitely separate quality. In this case, it happens to be reasonably true: Now You See Him is both literary and a page-turner. The narrator of this novel is Nick Framingham who recounts at the beginning a pivotal event: his childhood friend - and briefly famous writer - Rob Castor has killed his girlfriend and later himself. This gives Castor some newfound celebrity, but months later, most of the press is out of Rob's former hometown (and Nick's current one), Monarch, New York. Nick, however, cannot seem to recover from Rob's death. His marriage, faltering even before Rob's suicide, is truly crumbling now, exacerbated by Nick's self-absorption. In addition, Rob's sister - and Nick's first lover - is back in town and sparks are flying between the two. Among all the difficulties will come a series of revelations that will erode what little stability Nick still has. One of the things that often distinguishes literary novels from genre novels (mystery, science fiction, etc.) is that plot is often not the primary consideration, and things rarely resolve cleanly. Such is the case here; this is more the tale of Nick's slow self-destruction. The "how" of this self-destruction is obvious enough, but the "why" is a little more subtle. Gottlieb has an easy reading style that does indeed make this a fast page-turner. In Nick Framingham he creates a compelling character who sometimes is sympathetic but often isn't. While Now You See Him may not fit in any particular fiction genre, it is still a really good read of the sort that is popular with book clubs. But even outside of a book club environment, this is still worth picking up. Comment | | (Report this)