First published 2002
The obituary says Wesley Sultan died at 63 after a quiet, unremarkable life. He left behind three children, a wife, an ex-wife, and decades in business. The narrator reads these facts and decides to investigate. He uses the obituary as his guide and discovers that every detail hides deception. His search takes him from Michigan's winter cold to Miami's humid streets to rural France. He tracks down people who knew Sultan and slowly pieces together the real story. The dead man was handsome, driven, and obsessed with women. He lied constantly. The narrator fills the obituary's margins with corrections as each new revelation overturns the official version. But his interest in Sultan runs deeper than curiosity. As he uncovers the truth about this stranger's deceptions, he must face uncomfortable truths about his own past.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: France, Michigan, Miami
Period: 20th-century
273 pages · Paperback · Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group