Await Your Reply - (Random House Reader's Circle) by Dan Chaon (Paperback)

About the Book

The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways--and with unexpected consequences--in acclaimed author Chaon's gripping, brilliantly written new novel.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In this "deliciously disturbing literary thriller" (People), the lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways--and with unexpected consequences--from the award-winning author of Among the Missing.

"A riveting thriller, chock-full of plot twists, and a sober meditation on the erosion of identity in the age of technology."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Miles Cheshire longs to get on with his life, but can't stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal. But some version of the truth is always concealed.

A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy Lattimore sneaks away from the small town of Pompey, Ohio, with her charismatic former history teacher. They arrive in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, at a long-deserted motel next to a dried-up reservoir, to figure out the next move on their path to a new life. But soon Lucy begins to feel quietly uneasy.

My whole life is a lie, thinks Ryan Schuyler, who has recently learned some shocking news. In response, he walks off the Northwestern University campus, hops on a bus, and breaks loose from his existence, which suddenly seems abstract and tenuous. Presumed dead, Ryan decides to remake himself--through unconventional and precarious means.

A literary masterwork with the momentum of a thriller, Await Your Reply is an unforgettable novel in which pasts are invented and reinvented and the future is both seductively uncharted and perilously unmoored.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Salon, Entertainment Weekly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Kansas City Star, The Arizona Republic, Akron Beacon Journal, Lansing State Journal, The Week, Publishers Weekly

Review Quotes

"Stunning . . . Chaon succeeds in both creating suspense and making it pay off, but Await Your Reply also does something even better. Like the finest of his storytelling heroes, Chaon manages to bridge the gap between literary and pulp fiction with a clever, insinuating book equally satisfying to fans of either genre. He does travel two roads, even though that guy David Frost said it wasn't possible."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"A riveting thriller, chock-full of plot twists, and a sober meditation on the erosion of identity in the age of technology . . . There's a bristling momentum that develops, as in any great tale of suspense. . . . [Chaon] writes with an eloquence rarely seen in the world of page-turners."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Mesmerizing . . . engrossing . . . You need to step into this world of psychological suspense completely unprepared for what lurks in here. . . . Mysteries lurk in this hypnotic novel that you'll never guess."--The Washington Post

"The brilliant Dan Chaon has done it again. Both a genre-bending whodunit and a profound meditation on identity, Await Your Reply left me breathless with admiration. The pages turn themselves."--Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage

"I've been waiting for somebody to write the essential identity-theft novel, and I'm very glad Dan Chaon's the one to have done it, because he believes in real story and is faithful to the reader."--Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections

"This is a stunning and beautiful book. I must have read its final pages half a dozen times, just letting what lay packed and coiled within them settle into me. Out of pure loss, Chaon has created real magnificence. Await Your Reply attains a kind of blurry, bloodstained perfection."--Peter Straub, author of A Dark Matter

"I was completely hooked--a credit both to Chaon's intricate and suspenseful plotting and to some of the most paranoid material to hit American literature since Don Delillo's White Noise. . . . Await Your Reply is a dark, provocative book; in bringing its three strands together, Chaon has fashioned a braid out of barbed wire."--The New York Times Book Review

"A deliciously disturbing literary thriller. In the end, Await Your Reply is a story that unfolds with chilling precision. You'll be spellbound from start to finish."--People (four stars)

"A tender, melancholy meditation on attachment and loss."--O: The Oprah Magazine

"Far more than an absorbing mystery, in this complex and psychologically astute story Dan Chaon put on a virtuosic display of his literary talent. It's a thrilling example of the best of contemporary literary fiction."--Bookpage

"Chaon deftly intertwines a trio of story lines, showcasing his characters' individuality by threading subtle connections between and among them with effortless finesse, all the while invoking the complexities of what's real and what's fake with mesmerizing brilliance. This novel's structure echoes that of his well-received debut-also a book of threes--even as it bests that book's elegant prose, haunting plot and knockout literary excellence."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"So breathtaking . . . that the reader practically feels compelled to start the novel anew, just to discover the cues that he's missed along the way."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and You Remind Me of Me, which was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. Chaon's fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.