Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Years ago I read a collection of short stories by Adam Haslett, and was extraordinarily impressed, so it came as no surprise when I picked up his latest novel, IMAGINE ME GONE. The focus on the book is mental illness, a subject I have written about and continue to write about, since I grew up with a mentally ill mother. Family dynamics-the love and also contempt one feels for the challenged parent/sibling/family member is often a reality. How do you continue to love the person who inhabits a space you do not understand? What happens within a family when that mentally ill "other" takes up so much space, that there is no room for others to speak out and thrive? And there is always the claim on love and loyalty; how far do we go for those people who are our family but in title alone, since perhaps we do not love them sufficiently-if at all. Haslett creates a beautiful and tragic novel that made me laugh and cry, both, and which also felt so terribly familiar because of the home I grew up in. I feel haunted by it, still, and I read it in June. Interestingly, my husband just completed it, and though he appreciated it a great deal, he did not have the same grief-struck reaction I did, so I wonder if growing up beneath dark shadows makes me-as a reader-respond more quickly to a novel which understands these shadows. And by the way, the diction is superb!

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