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Watching You Without Me

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

The highly anticipated new literary suspense novel from Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author Lynn Coady.

After her mother's sudden death, Karen finds herself back in her childhood home in Nova Scotia for the first time in a decade, acting as full-time caregiver to Kelli, her older sister. Overwhelmed with grief and the daily needs of Kelli, who was born with a developmental disability, Karen begins to feel consumed by the isolation of her new role. On top of that, she's weighed down with guilt over her years spent keeping Kelli and their independent-to-a-fault mother, Irene, at arm's length. And so when Trevor — one of Kelli's support workers — oversteps his role and offers friendly advice and a shoulder to cry on, Karen gratefully accepts his somewhat overbearing friendship. When she discovers how close Trevor was to Irene, she comes to trust him all the more. But as Trevor slowly insinuates himself into Karen and Kelli's lives, Karen starts to grasp the true aspect of his relationship with her mother — and to experience for herself the suffocating nature of Trevor's "care."

Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author Lynn Coady delivers a creepy and wholly compelling novel about the complex relationship between mothers and daughters and sisters, women and men, and who to trust and how to trust in a world where the supposedly selfless act of caregiving can camouflage a sinister self-interest.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 18, 2020
      Canadian author Coady’s unsettling tale of a clingy family caregiver (after the collection Hellgoing) explores a woman’s grief over the death of her mother and her struggle to take care of her intellectually disabled sister. Karen Petrie, a 40-something lawyer, returns to Nova Scotia from Toronto after her mother, Irene, dies from cancer, to settle her older sister, Kelli, into the care facility Irene had chosen for her. At the urging of Kelli’s caregiver, Trevor, who Kelli is always overjoyed to see, Karen hesitates at finalizing Kelli’s move. Trevor possesses his own key to the house and makes unscheduled visits, leading Karen to believe his claims that he was close to their mother, while Karen decides to take care of Kelli until a bed opens in another facility. When social services calls Karen to follow up on an anonymous tip about Kelli’s well-being, Karen leans more on Trevor, ignoring red flags, such as a creeping sense that Trevor had briefly kidnapped Karen and Kelli after a tour of another facility, until his behavior becomes alarming. Karen’s sardonic, retrospective narration highlights how her grief clouded her judgment of Trevor, and Coady impresses with her careful, humane characterization of Kelli. This stands out for its incisive, bleakly humorous look at gullibility and the complexities of guilt. Agent: Christy Fletcher, Fletcher & Company.

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  • English

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