The Tell

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Description

Mira and Owen's marriage is less stable than they know when Wilton Deere, an aging, no longer famous TV star moves in to the house next door. With plenty of money and time to kill, Wilton is charming and ruthless as he inserts himself into the couple's life in a quest for distraction, friendship and most urgently, a connection with the daughter he abandoned years earlier. The Tell is a finely-wrought novel about risk: of dependence, of responsibility, of addiction, of trust, of violence.

Reviews

"Hester Kaplan is a master of her craft, and in The Tell she uses her prodigious talent to put a marriage under her microscope. Every sentence of this book is breathtaking." -- Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle

"Hester Kaplan brings such fresh language and uncanny insight to whatever her keen eye lands upon, it's as if she creates it anew. Everything, everyone, every inflection in The Tell is charged with precision, feeling, and consequence." -- Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others

"The Tell is an homage to The Great Gatsby: The competing forces of true love and false idols are played out beautifully in the course of a roiling relationship with a larger-than-life neighbor. This is a wonderful book." -- Antonya Nelson, author of Bound

"Gorgeous and haunting, Kaplan's riveting new novel about what we fight to hide, or ache to reveal about ourselves, grabs you by the throat and builds to a crescendo that's pure Greek tragedy. It's hard not to use the word genius." -- Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You

"The Tell is an engrossing novel, at once richly observed and tautly plotted. Wilton Deere is one of the most riveting and unsettling characters I've encountered in a long time. I read this hungrily, and with great pleasure." -- Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of Ms. Hempel Chronicles

"Kaplan writes with remarkable acuity about the psychological challenges faced by each of her vulnerable characters. . . . Highly recommended for readers who enjoy the psychologically complex work of Annie Proulx, or Stewart O'Nan." -- Booklist

"Kaplan's characters are impeccably crafted." -- The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"The Tell is filled with fascinating subplots and well-drawn supporting roles. . . . An exceptionally good read." -- The Providence Phoenix

"A wonderfully written, perceptive, and engaging novel. . . . Kaplan has created a story inhabited with impeccable and image-sharpened tremors, so acutely attuned to insights, epiphanies, betrayals and threats that I couldn't put it down." -- The Providence Journal

Author Bio

Hester Kaplan is the author of THE EDGE OF MARRIAGE , which won the Flannery OConnor Award for Short Fiction, and KINSHIP THEORY, a novel. She has won numerous awards for her fiction and nonfiction, and her short stories have been included in THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series. She teaches in Lesley Universitys MFA Program in Creative Writing, and lives in Rhode Island.