First published 2005
Bob Slocum sits in his corporate office, surveying a life that looks perfect from the outside. He climbs the executive ladder at his company. His wife waits at home in their comfortable house. His three children depend on him. His mistresses provide the excitement his marriage lacks. Society tells him he should feel satisfied, even grateful. Instead, Bob feels trapped by the very success he once pursued. The pretending grows harder each day. His discontent deepens into something darker. Fear creeps into every corner of his ordered existence. The frustration builds until it becomes unbearable. Bob realizes that conformity extracted a price he never intended to pay. Then something shifts in his carefully constructed world, forcing him to confront the desolation he has been hiding from himself and everyone around him.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: midlife-crisis, unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th-Century
569 pages · Paperback · Vintage/Ebury (a Division of Random
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness