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    Now You See Him: A Novel
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    Now You See Him: A Novel
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    Now You See Him: A Novel
    Ebook281 pages4 hours

    Now You See Him: A Novel

    By Eli Gottlieb

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    His name was Rob Castor. Quite possibly, you've heard of him. He became a minor cult celebrity in his early twenties for writing a book of darkly pitch-perfect stories set in a stupid upstate New York town. About a dozen years later, he murdered his writer-girlfriend and committed suicide. . . .

    The deaths of Rob Castor and his girlfriend begin a wrenching and enthrallingly suspenseful story that mines the explosive terrains of love and paternity, marriage and its delicate intricacies, family secrets and how they fester over time, and ultimately the true nature of loyalty and trust, friendship and envy, deception and manipulation.

    As the media takes hold of this sensational crime, a series of unexpected revelations unleashes hidden truths in the lives of those closest to Rob. At the center of this driving narrative is Rob's childhood best friend, Nick Framingham, whose ten-year marriage to his college sweetheart is faltering. Shocked by Rob's death, Nick begins to reevaluate his own life and his past, and as he does so, a fault line opens up beneath him, leading him all the way to the novel's startling conclusion.

    In this ambitious and thrilling novel, award-winning author Eli Gottlieb—with extraordinarily luxuriant and evocative prose—takes us deep into the human psyche, where the most profound of secrets are kept.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061850073
    Unavailable
    Now You See Him: A Novel
    Author

    Eli Gottlieb

    Eli Gottlieb's The Boy Who Went Away won the prestigious Rome Prize and the 1998 McKitterick Prize from the British Society of Authors. It also received extraordinary notices and was a New York Times Notable book. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

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    Reviews for Now You See Him

    3/5

    106 ratings17 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Nick Framingham is coping, albeit poorly, with the loss of his best friend, Rob Castor, a writer of some repute whose devil-may-care attitude the more introverted Nick envied throughout their childhood. We know from the beginning that Rob killed his girlfriend and then himself, leading to a media firestorm that elevates his fame following his final hours and makes his small hometown the center of national attention. What we don't know is why Nick, months later, is refusing to move on and instead is willingly swallowed by the black hole of grief. And we're not the only ones: his wife doesn't understand, his colleagues don't understand, his friends don't understand. But Nick is at risk of losing much more, including his career, his wife, and his children if he doesn't make peace with the past and a friend who seemed self-centered and charmless at his best. Yawn.Now You See Him is not what I expected. I thought I was getting a taut literary thriller full of suspense (because that's what the blurb blatantly led me to believe) and instead I got a species of character I find increasingly frustrating and tedious: the navel gazing middle-aged male whining his way through a midlife crisis. Do I empathize with Nick's grief? Sure, but he doesn't make it easy for me to do so. He's not a likable guy (no one in this novel is likable) and seems intent on his own self-destruction. His obsession with Rob's death seems creepy to the nth power and the reader is constantly aware of the fact that Nick is withholding something, but hoards the truth with a Gollum-like "my precious" tenacity. When we are finally given explanation for why his friend's death continues to reverberate throughout his own existence, it's too little much too late and has all the subtlety of a Greek tragedy. It provides perspective, but by that point my disgust with Nick had reached such monumental proportions that I simply couldn't forgive much of what he had already done.So why a 2 star? Gottlieb can write beautifully and offers some profound and genuine moments that capture the contemplation of grief, but there's also cringe-worthy, soap opera dialogue and the final reveal is a bit of "ta-da!" literary trickery that, provided up front, could have redeemed Nick in the reader's eyes.Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder
    • 4/5
      Now You See Him is a terrific first novel chock full of mood and subtlety and beautiful writing. Plus, I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator.
    • 3/5
      This book is about the childhood friend (Nick) of a charismatic celebrity writer (Rob). Rob shot his girlfriend dead before committing suicide, and the resulting effect on his friends and family are still being felt months later, after the press has finally died down. Nick has a mid-life crisis that finds his wife getting frustrated by his continuing grief for his old friend, and she manages to drag him into couples’ therapy. Meanwhile Nick has hooked up with Belinda, his first girlfriend and Rob’s sister. There was lots of introspection and angst in this one, and none of the characters came out particularly sympathetic. But I did enjoy reading this, particularly the surprising twists at the end.
    • 5/5
      I knew I was going to like this within a couple of pages of starting it: the author has a pleasant rolling style of prose that picks you up like an ocean wave and keeps you bobbing along - and he keeps the tension high by dropping each strand of the plot at just the right moment and picking up somewhere else. Told from the point of view of Nick, who had an unhappy childhood, in particular having an unsatisfactory relationship with his father, and who lost his best friend in dramatic circumstances, it traces the effects on Nick's marriage as he becomes steadily more isolated from his wife. Every aspect of the story is observed beautifully, and as more of the circumstances emerge, it provides the reader with an opportunity to consider whether or not they actually sympathise with Nick. A brilliant novel; one of my reads of the year for sure.
    • 4/5
      Good prose. Interesting characters. Interesting portrayal of differing paths taken by small town best friends.
    • 3/5
      Well, another depressing novel thank you very much. I really like Eli's writing, he's a formidable talent and I appreciated his descriptions and well crafted moments. I got a little choked up with the Father/Son stuff and I have to say I did not see the twist at the end coming. I look forward to more of this guy's work.
    • 1/5
      From the description, I thought this might be a mystery or thriller, but it was far more boring. Most of the book is just the dull narrator feeling sorry for himself and whining about how much his life sucks. His wife doesn't love him anymore, he can't seem to get himself to be a decent husband to her because everything should revolve around him, he can't believe his old friend killed himself, wah wah wah. Just a book length pity party.
    • 3/5
      Now You See HIm is not the sort of book I normally pick up to read. It's quite short and easy to get through. Mildly interesting literary mystery novel. I think I read it in the space of an hour or so. My overall thought about this work is that it's "ok." Not particularly memorable. The story itself is compelling but the characters didn't reel me in or leave any lasting imprint.
    • 2/5
      Pretentious, but I love this sentence: "Belinda was built like a beautiful nose tackle, with all her physical features outsized, as if for the anatomically hard of hearing."
    • 2/5
      Easy to skim because it was essentially dialog, which was just about its only virtue. The dialog was unbelievable (people just don't talk like that); the characters had no depth (for example, just what did Nick do at his work?); the big suspenseful secret was obvious by about page 40.
    • 3/5
      With a blend of beautiful language and precisely calculated revelation of information Gottlieb creates a literary gem of suspenseful personal drama. We meet Nick Framingham as he learns of a murder-suicide involving his childhood best friend, Rob Castor. This pivotal event precipitates a slowly accumulating avalanche of information and events that lead Nick to question his marriage, his ability to give and receive love, and his ability to determine right from wrong. Nick’s obsession with his friend’s death drives a wedge into his fragile marriage that he describes as, “a steady falling away from a dream of undivided light.” Lucy, his wife, is suspicious of Nick’s involvement with Rob’s reckless sister, Belinda, and Nick seems incapable of cooperating during their frustrating marriage counseling sessions. Repeated visits with his own parents and with Rob’s viciously dysfunctional mother are disturbing but somehow compelling to Nick. Ultimately the constant probing at the raw wounds that are trust, truth, and identity serves to bring deep secrets to the surface, changing lives forever and prompting us to ask, How do we see others? And maybe, more importantly, How do we see ourselves?
    • 4/5
      I wanted to know a little bit more about Rob. Somewhere around the middle of the book I started to get annoyed with Nick and Lucy (especially Lucy). Why wasn't Lucy a little more sympathetic? Belindaput some life back into the story. Once the story picked up, I had to finish it.
    • 3/5
      Gottlieb is an accomplished writer, and his novel pulled me in. Unfortunately, it didn't keep me there. It makes sense that in a novel about alienation and the failure to communicate, that the reader would feel distanced from the character. The problem is that there seems to be little reason to care. The initially intriguing story of Rob Castor, the brilliant young author whose murder-suicide of his ex-girlfriend and himself is the impetus for the story. But explorations of Rob's tragedy are gradually sidelined in favor of Nick's own story. Because the behavior and motivations of Nick's wife seems inexplicable to us (as perhaps to him -- surely meeting his dead best friend's sister for coffee hardly requires a shrewish and suspicious response, even if, in the end, it is justified), there is a shallowness and a one-sidedness to the presentation that leaves the reader cold. The plot twists (and there are several) are not "startling," as the jacket text proclaims, but predictable. The sense of a broader world outside of Nick's own ego might have created a far more engaging, and ultimately more tragic, story.
    • 4/5
      "Now You See HIm" is an insightful story about a man going through a mid-life crisis-with a twist. The events around him provide hooks for moral dilemmas and Gottlieb's prose brings us into the moment. "...life itself was a highly breakable object, and as such must be approached sidelong and with the maximum caution." and phrases such as this show us the inner workings of Nick as he deals with what life is throwing at him. Gottleib's rich and layered prose saves the book from it's few spots of tedium. The approach of alternating with flash backs brings a tension to the novel that brings it above the level of simply a book about a mid-life crisis. An excellent read, and a rare look into the male mind that feels very real.
    • 5/5
      Eli Gottlieb's first novel, The Boy Who Went Away, won the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the McKitterick Prize of the British Society of Authors. There has been eager anticipation for his second novel, so I was honored and pleased that I was selected to receive an Advanced Reader’s Edition for review. I am pleased to report that Now You See Him is a literary, psychological, and moral tour-de-force. Once again, the author delights us with prose that is subtle, lush, fresh, and powerful, but it is the strong moral undercurrent of this novel that will carry you away.It took courage to write and publish this novel! This is a dark, brooding piece that provokes the reader to argue for and against each side of a number of highly questionable moral acts. What’s more, the novel begs readers to empathize with deeply flawed characters. These are normal well-meaning people who nonetheless commit appalling acts of everyday and criminal moral trespass. Many readers may simply be turned off by the whole moody, slow, introspective, tenor of the work. But those who relish moral fiction will be stimulated and meaningfully challenged. Gottlieb gives us a set of characters stripped to their raw authenticity. He artfully makes us aware of each character’s self-delusions. We get to see how these delusions resonate through the lives of friends and family. We witness the irony of characters so wrapped up in their own take on reality that they are blind to their misdeeds and how they mirror the very crimes they rail against in others. These are families with secrets, abundant sorrow, and emotional violence at their core. The plot starts off with a media circus in Monarch, New York, the hometown of famous Manhattan writer, Rob Castor. The media are drawn to this rural upstate New York location because Rob murders his girlfriend in Manhattan and then commits suicide in Monarch. But the novel is not about Rob Castor. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Nick Farmington, Rob’s boyhood best friend. Based on court transcripts, we learn the details of Rob’s crime of passion, but it is Nick’s life that is the real focus of this book. On the positive side, Nick likes to think of himself as a cultured man who married the girl of his dreams, had two lovely boys, and was lucky enough to find a steady academic managerial position in his hometown. On the negative side, Nick’s life has been on a steep downward spiral for many years. The book opens six months after Rob’s murder-suicide, when Nick’s life spirals out of control and hits rock bottom. Nick thinks: “I felt myself increasingly becalmed in life. It was as if I were on the receiving end of some mysterious large process, and singled out for special attention. ‘The world knew,’ I told myself. The world knew what I’d done and the world was taking action. And part of that action was to make sure that it—the world—perforated me so violently with its sights and sounds that I was paralyzed out of sheer nervous saturation.” Nick is a man dead in his soul and the reader is compelled to know why. This is a book about understanding the dark roots of human motivation, especially the strong subtle role that self-delusion plays in all wrongdoing. The book is a journey though the inner workings of Nick’s mind during a period of turmoil and anguish. Layer by layer, the self-delusions are stripped away. Finally, we see Nick bare—it is as if the author were entreating: Now you see him! ...and yes, you will. And what will you do with this knowledge? Will you judge Nick…forgive him…condemn him? Gottlieb leaves it up to his readers to ponder these bigger moral questions…and mark my word, they will haunt you for days.I highly recommend this book for its exquisite prose and thematic depth. This book is clearly not for everyone, but those on the lookout for outstanding literary moral fiction will be handsomely rewarded.[Readers may be interested to know that Sharp Entertainment recently acquired the film rights to Now You See Him (Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2008, p. E17). Sharp Entertainment has produced successful thought-provoking films such as Proof, You Can Count on Me, and Boys Don’t Cry.]
    • 3/5
      This was an ARE I managed to snag from LibraryThing. What is friendship? What would you do for a friend? What would you require of a friend? And could you survive that friendship? These are the questions at the heart of this book.Rob Castor was a literary genius, for a short time anyway. Efforts at his second book have come to nothing, his girlfriend has left him for a Donald Trump-esque guy who's been publishing her stories, making her famous, leaving him holed up in a grimy Chinatown apartment. When he returns to his home town of Monarch after shooting her (no, that's not a spoiler), nobody seems to notice how he's changed and it's only after the evening news a few days later that they learn what's happened.Nick Framingham was Rob's best friend. In the six months since Rob murdered his ex-girlfriend then committed suicide (again, no spoiler--it's on the jacket), his life seems to be unraveling. His wife doesn't understand, which I found completely ununderstandable. She complains they had no contact for years, but really, if a childhood friend both murdered someone then committed suicide, I'd expect anyone to be quite a bit thrown off by it. I didn't like her. But as Nick ponders his life, we see he's not entirely blameless for his isolation. But she could have been more understanding about the whole weirdness of the childhood best friend turning out to be a killer/suicide thing!As Nick looks back into his life, he finds more and more secrets which make certain things a bit on the icky side. But I have to say that none of them took me by surprise. I don't know if they were foreshadowed somehow and I didn't catch it, or if they were just telegraphed. I expected to have a "holy shit!" moment, and I suspect that's what the author was going for, but it didn't happen for me. So it was an okay book. I ended up disliking Nick a lot near the end of the book, though at the end I really felt sorry for him. Still didn't like his wife. Rob? The most interesting character, as he's still a bit of an enigma.
    • 3/5
      Now You See Him is a quick-reading, punchy little novel. It follows the life of Nick Framingham after the death of his childhood friend. Bouncing from scandal to scandal, it has a lurid, almost tabloid feel to it, though it is peppered with deeper insight into the human character and drive. I felt it was difficult, throughout, to like Nick, who often justifies his bad behavior with lofty ideals, or finds himself the victim of what he imagines to be crimes against his heart, never noticing the crimes he himself is committing. I think that Nick was surely intended to be a flawed hero, but sometimes I found him a whiny one.