Imagine Me Gone

When Margaret's handsome English fiance is hospitalized for depression, she faces a choice: go ahead with their planned marriage or back away. She decides to marry him. The newlyweds move back to Boston to start a family: first Michael, a brilliant, anxious music fanatic, then savvy, responsible Celia, and finally sensitive, meticulous Alec. But over the span of decades, the golden haze of early childhood recedes and Michael spirals down an increasingly troubled and precarious existence. How much can any family give to save one of its own? Weaving together the voices of its five central characters, Imagine Me Gone captures the ferocious love that binds parent to child, brother to sister, and asks what this love does to those who give or receive it. Suffused with aching beauty and compassion, Imagine Me Gone is a bittersweet portrait of depression and the impossible task of saving someone from it. Combining masterful vision with intimate humanity, Adam Haslett proves himself to be one of the most exciting American novelists of his generation. 'A beautiful, elegant, harrowing story of the dissonant music of family. This is a book that makes you eager, once more, for the complications of the world.' Colum McCann 'An extraordinary work of art. This beautiful, tragic novel will haunt you for the rest of your life and you will be all the more human for it.' Paul Harding.