NATIONAL BESTSELLER тАв Two sensational unsolved crimesтАФone in the past, another in the presentтАФare linked by one manтАЩs memory and self-deception in this chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon.
Includes an exclusive conversation between Dan Chaon and Lynda Barry
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Wall Street Journal тАв NPR тАв┬аThe New York Times┬атАв Los Angeles Times тАв The Washington Post тАв Kirkus Reviews тАв Publishers Weekly
тАЬWe are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves.тАЭ This is one of the little mantras Dustin Tillman likes to share with his patients, and itтАЩs meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of DustinтАЩs parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has┬аoverturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.
Meanwhile, one of DustinтАЩs patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that thereтАЩs more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundariesтАФand putting his own family in harmтАЩs way.
From one of todayтАЩs most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan ChaonтАЩs nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.
тАЬIn his haunting, strikingly original new novel, [Dan] Chaon takes formidable risks, dismantling his timeline like a film editor.тАЭтАФThe New York Times Book Review
тАЬThe scariest novel of the year . . . ingenious . . . ChaonтАЩs novel walks along a garrote stretched taut between Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock.тАЭтАФThe Washington Post