All Things Cease to Appear

by Elizabeth Brundage

Ebook, 2016

Library's rating

Library's review

I'm not sure what to think about this one. The blurb calls it a literary thriller, and the prologue sets it up as a ghost story with some good spooky potential. And then ... it turns into a regular old novel, a study of marriage between incompatible people, and the damage it does to the children

born into it. "Regular old novel" probably isn't quite fair, because I thought it was really well-written, and interesting, and the author created some great characters who were very memorable and either sympathetic or not, as needed, but ... the ghost is still there, but not at all spooky, and what seemed like it might be a murder mystery with supernatural elements turned out to be much more straightforward than that. So ... yeah. I don't know what to think about this one. My criteria for 3.5 stars is "I'm glad I read this" and I guess I am. So there's that.

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Genres

Mystery

All Topics

Fiction

Collections

Your library, eBooks, Read in 2016

Description

Fiction. Literature. Mystery. Thriller. HTML:A dark, riveting, beautifully written book�??by "a brilliant novelist," according to Richard Bausch�??that combines noir and the gothic in a story about two families entwined in their own unhappiness, with, at its heart, a gruesome and unsolved murder Late one winter afternoon in upstate New York, George Clare comes home to find his wife killed and their three-year-old daughter alone�??for how many hours?�??in her room across the hall. He had recently, begrudgingly, taken a position at a nearby private college (far too expensive for local kids to attend) teaching art history, and moved his family into a tight-knit, impoverished town that has lately been discovered by wealthy outsiders in search of a rural idyll. George is of course the immediate suspect�??the question of his guilt echoing in a story shot through with secrets both personal and professional. While his parents rescue him from suspicion, a persistent cop is stymied at every turn in proving Clare a heartless murderer. And three teenage brothers (orphaned by tragic circumstances) find themselves entangled in this mystery, not least because the Clares had moved into their childhood home, a once-thriving dairy farm. The pall of death is ongoing, and relentless; behind one crime there are others, and more than twenty years will pass before a hard kind of justice is finally served. A rich and complex portrait of a psychopath and a marriage, this is also an astute study of the various taints that can scar very different families, and even an entire community. Elizabeth Brundage is an essential talent who has given us a true modern classic. From the Hardcove… (more)

Media reviews

New York Times

...as much as anything, this is a character sketch: of a marriage, a sociopath, a family destroyed by the economy, the things we do for love — all finely drawn within the confined environment of a creaking old farmhouse on a homestead in a town far, far away.... All of the [characters] are

sympathetic and suspicious in equal measure, a result of Brundage’s ability to peel away the onionskin layers of emotion that define any relationship. As the clues accumulate and the killer is revealed, the truth becomes both horrifying and inevitable. In the end, justice is done and redemption found, though not as one might expect, which makes the book all the more satisfying.

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— 4 more

Wall Street Journal

A book as lyrically written, frequently shocking and immensely moving as Elizabeth Brundage’s “All Things Cease to Appear” transcends categorization. Is the book a “police procedural”? In part. A “gothic mystery”? Incidentally. A novel of “psychological suspense”? In spades. A

chilling case-study of a serial soul-killer? A “Spoon River”-style panorama of small-town life in upstate New York in the late 1970s? A parable of good and evil informed by the theological notions of the 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg? Yes, yes and yes. It was, perhaps, for such extraordinary books that the term “literary thriller” was coined.

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BookReporter

ALL THINGS CEASE TO APPEAR is an expertly crafted thriller, with vivid, dramatic set pieces (a car chase on a dark country road; an ominous nighttime boat ride) that seem ready for the big-screen treatment. But it’s also a skilled and intelligent work of literary fiction.... ALL THINGS CEASE TO

APPEAR is as insightful as it is suspenseful. Brundage’s thoughtful exploration of how people find themselves trapped in lives that don’t seem quite their own won’t satisfy all readers, especially those looking for a more traditional thriller. But those as interested in unraveling the mysteries of the human heart as they are in figuring out whodunit won’t be able to put this book down.

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Kirkus Reviews

Here’s the thing about creepy old farmhouses: they’re full of ghosts, and ax murderers lurk in the tree line.... There’s no shortage of suspects on the mortal plane, to say nothing of the supernatural. Part procedural, part horror story, part character study, Brundage’s literate yarn is

full of telling moments: George is like a “tedious splinter” in Catherine’s mind, while George dismisses her concerns that maybe they shouldn’t be living in a place where horrible things have happened with, “As usual, you’re overreacting.” But more, and better, Brundage carries the arc of her story into the future, where the children of the nightmare, scarred by poverty, worry, meth, Iraq, are bound up in its consequences, the weight of all those ghosts, whether real or imagined, upon them forever.

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Publishers Weekly

Brundage’s (bestselling author of The Doctor’s Wife) searing, intricate novel epitomizes the best of the literary thriller, marrying gripping drama with impeccably crafted prose, characterizations, and imagery....Moving fluidly between viewpoints and time periods, Brundage’s complex narrative

requires and rewards close attention. Succeeding as murder mystery, ghost tale, family drama, and love story, her novel is both tragic and transcendent.

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