I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Net Galley.

Ex-con Daniel Ahearn has seen his daughter in four decades -- not since the brutal night that changed everything. Susan, raised by her grandmother, doesn't remember that night and believes her father to be dead. As Daniel faces a terminal illness, he travels from New England to Florida to find the daughter that has been lost to him so long. At the same time, Susan in struggling with issues in her own life and marriage -- probably caused by the early trauma she doesn't even remember. A satisfying read. Recommended. Three and a half stars.

Quite possibly the best new book I've read this year, Gone So Long will stay with me for a long while. Written by the same author as House of Sand and Fog, this novel creates characters that live and breathe for the reader, who aren't well liked, but relatable. Andre Dubus III writes characters that are human and messy, complete with their own meatiness and depth. I couldn't put this 480 page novel down and consumed, yes, consumed it in a day!

"Daniel Ahearn lives a quiet, solitary existence in a seaside New England town. Forty years ago, following a shocking act of impulsive violence on his part, his daughter, Susan, was ripped from his arms by police. Now in her forties, Susan still suffers from the trauma of a night she doesn’t remember, as she struggles to feel settled, to love a man and create something that lasts. Lois, her maternal grandmother who raised her, tries to find peace in her antique shop in a quaint Florida town but cannot escape her own anger, bitterness, and fear." -Goodreads synopsis from the publisher

While this is the essence of the book, the book is so much more. Told from the eyes of the three characters, Daniel, Susan and Noni, it shows us grief and regret and so much more. The author also gets the locale of the novel correct, depicting the hard scrabble area of the Massachusetts shore, as well as little Arcadia, Florida. The towns become additional characters in their own right.

Having read the author's book, House of Sand and Fog, when it was released years ago, I can say this book is even better. I highly recommend this book for someone wanting a more dense read and a model for character development. 5 Stars!

This is a sad story. And after 342 pages just when I thought it would finally start, it was all over.

'Our lives are brief, even long ones like hers, and all we should do is take care of each other.'

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

4.5 stars This story is narrated by three people: daughter, father, grandmother. Daniel is the father who killed his wife in a jealous rage 40 years ago, Susan is the daughter who was 3 when her mother died, and the maternal grandmother is Lisa (Noni), who raised Susan after her daughter’s death. Daniel paid for his crime but has been out of prison for 25 years. He is now dying and wants to see his daughter. He painstaking writes her a letter and sets off on a road trip to find her.

This is a character study as the author dives deep into the psyches of the characters. It is a dark but poignant journey for the reader. The reader is privy to their innermost thoughts as the past is explored in flashbacks, and through excerpts of the memoir Susan is writing. There is always more than one victim of a violent crime, and Dubas makes it clear as we explore the aftermath of Susan’s death.

At 480 pages, perhaps some bits could have been trimmed, but the book reads very fast. It’s a slow burn, but the characters are so well-developed that by the end I felt as if I knew them as intimately as if they were real people. It is beautifully written, a powerful story written with empathy and sensitivity. Susan and Lois can be difficult to like but because of Dubas’s skill as an author, we can begin to at least understand them. And isn’t that what great fiction does? It allows us the opportunity to step into the shoes of someone and walk the walk with them.

This would be a perfect book for fans of After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search by Sarah Perry

** Many thanks to Netgalley, for a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review

Very good book - it is not a "light" subject; however, the author does an excellent job of developing the characters and examining the very complex relationships between the characters. Welcome back after 10 years, Andre Dubus III - you and your writing have been missed!

Daniel. Susan.

Father. Daughter.

Two lost souls.

Daniel, allowed his jealousy to consume him...killing his wife Linda, in a fit of rage.

Susan, his daughter, raised by her maternal grandmother, Lois (Noni) doesn’t know if she has ever felt “love” for anyone.

They have been estranged for the forty years as he served his time in jail, but now he is dying and hoping to see her one last time before he does.

Susan is trying to make sense of her life...attempting to write a memoir when her father’s letter arrives, announcing his impending arrival. She isn’t sure if she wants to see him.

The narratives of Susan and Daniel alternate, character studies of a murderer, and his daughter.

Each is reflective of the lives they have led, and the choices they have made, with much attention to detail, The focus is the past for much of the 480 pages, until their paths have the potential to cross.

Father . Daughter.

Will either find the closure they so desperately need?

Patience is required for this read, but I did feel their pain by the end.

Andre Dubus III created Susan Dunn and placed her in the center of his new novel, Gone So Long. Susan is forty-three, a writer, a college lecturer, and a student. She lives in the southwestern part of Florida with her husband, Bobby, a musicologist. She is, on the surface, like any young, attractive woman we might come into contact with in our daily travels. However, Susan is carrying pain and grief and the burden of wanting to write a novel that seems to burn inside of her unwritten, for years.

Susan's grandmother raised her. She still calls Lois, "Noni." They come from a background of carnival workers based in New England. Susan's mother, Lois, hung out at the pier every summer. She loved the sounds and the smell of the fried bread, pizza, cotton candy and hung around the big ride, The Himalaya, because she liked the DJ, Danny. He played all the latest songs. He was the coolest guy she had ever met. She married him.

Lois didn't like Danny, and she was always critical of Linda for the choices she made. The lives of the three women create the novel's narrative. As someone said this weekend in connection with the Kavanaugh Supreme Court inquiry, the women always lose (I believe it was Jeffrey Toobin on CNN). This densely written novel confirms this opinion. The women try to keep it all together, to smooth the rough spots, get over the tragedies, and go on to take care of each other. For the most part, the women lose.

So much of life is about taking the hurt and the pain and making some peace with it. Some of us are successful at that and others, not at all. Noni and Susan struggle with anger, resentment, and a complex combination of hatred and hurt. It takes a writer like ADIII to give us a story about how all this can be realized, at least in fiction, if not reality.

I received an advanced copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

“Papa loved Mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen”
--Garth Brooks, Papa loved Mama, Ropin’ the Wind
So goes the story of Danny and Linda. Danny was the unattractive boy with the great voice, tapped to be the DJ at the local boardwalk. Linda was beautiful and smart. Danny could hardly believe his good luck when she noticed him. Linda’s pregnancy precipitated their marriage. But Danny was plagued with jealousy, and in one violent moment it all came to an end.
Andre Dubus III has written a hauntingly beautiful story of love and jealousy. It is told from three viewpoints, Danny, his daughter Susan, and Noni, Linda’s mother who raised Susan. Dubus unfolds the story in real time and flashbacks, forty years after that fateful day. Danny has served his time, is living a solitary life and is dying. An aging Noni is bitter and unforgiving. Susan, as beautiful as her mother, is incapable of lasting relationships. Danny’s wish is to see Susan one time before he dies. Dubus eloquently captures the suffering that they all endured. Raw emotion fills this novel.
Books and writing play an important role in Dubus’s story. Linda loved to read and read to Susan when she was a child. Noni claims that Susan spent her childhood with her head in a book. Susan is struggling to write a novel, which is morphing into a memoir. Susan’s story emerges through this book within a book. Danny is struggling to write a letter to Susan telling her of his regrets and expressing a desire to see her one last time. I found the emphasis on books to be an interesting aspect of this story.
I love this writing style. Several pages in, I realized that this book was written by a Southerner, where story telling is a major activity. Like most Southern writers, Dubus uses beautiful descriptions to illustrate his story. He could probably win an award for the longest sentences in contemporary literature! You would need a blackboard to diagram some of these. In my mind’s eye, that slow descriptive style embellishes the story.
This is my first Andre Dubus III book. I thank Netgalley and W.W.Norton & Co. for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. I can’t wait to read more of this author.
I give this book a strong 5 star rating.

Via flashbacks and autobiographical account Andre Dubus takes us on a journey into the lives of Suzie Dunn and her husband Bobby, her father Danny Ahearn and her grandmother Lois (Noni) Dubie with his latest look at the gritty lives of everyday folks and the toll that jealousy and anger extracts.

Dubus is an author who likes to place his characters in seemingly hopeless situations as he takes deep dives into their emotions closely examining their mistakes and regrets, hatred and acrimony and how they eventually learn to accept and deal with them. He did it with THE HOUSE O SAND AND FOG and once again he does it with GONE SO LONG. He is a master of understatement and the slow burn and as an author his compassionate yet unsentimental eye just reports, never judges and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions about how they feel about the characters.

Dubus creates stories where people live in the real world so you never expect the fairy tale “happily ever after” ending. Without giving anything away I am happy to say that this book concludes on a much more hopeful note than HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG

‘Stories never end. Even after we’re gone, what we’ve left behind lives on in some way.’

Daniel Ahearn killed his wife in front of their 3-year-old daughter, Susan. Long out of prison and living a quiet, reclusive life he is diagnosed with terminal cancer and seeks out the daughter he has not seen since that night. Such is the premise of the new novel by Andre Dubus III, a story of parents and children, of seeking peace and confronting the past. Susan has led a damaged life, leaving a trail of broken relationships and a sense of emptiness. Her maternal grandmother Lois, mother to the murdered Linda, has raised Susan but also has issues with anger and is unable to forgive the act which destroyed their family.

Dubus creates characters that are so real, so human, that although this is not a ‘happy ever after’ story we care about these damaged people. As the book inexorably draws towards the meeting of father and daughter it examines how we cope with the past, with memories and with guilt, and how we see ourselves and the different people we are over time. The narrative shifts focus between each of the three main characters and the full background stories of each slowly unfold with Dubus’ skill and dexterity as a novelist. The book uses images and metaphors with precision and without them being overbearing: there are issues about freedom and choices, about identity and naming (Danny/Daniel, Susan/Suzie), and the act of writing itself becomes a way to come to understand and confront the past. The meeting, when it comes, avoids any mawkishness or sentimentality (I won’t spoil how it all turns out), but there is resolution of sorts by the end of the book, and there is the possibility of a better future for some of the characters at least.

This is a brilliantly written story of a family torn apart by an act of unforgiveable violence, and the damage that continues to echo through time. It is a bruising, emotional and challenging book as it questions how you can find sympathy or understanding for Daniel and his actions. There is humanity and genuine emotion in the writing. It is stunningly good, and I absolutely recommend it.

(With thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)

I will be one of the few who did not enjoy this book, but it is through no fault of the author. Dubus is a masterful author, and his writing can be beautiful. However, I don't believe that I was in the right mood to read this. I found it incredibly dreary, unbearably so at times, and while the characters are sympathetic, I had trouble connecting to them. The lack of connection could have been due to the fact that the narratives alternate with each chapter, which is something that I sometimes struggle with.

I would definitely recommend this to fans of Dubus' other titles, as well as patrons looking for realistic portrayals of father-child relationships and trauma.

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company, Andre Dubus III, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was not prepared for the long emotional journey this book would be. The story is told through the eyes of daughter, father, and grandmother, all who are dealing with the aftermath of the father killing his wife (who is the mother and daughter of the other two). I loved how well Mr. Dubus etched out his characters, detail by detail and painstakingly pieced the story together. I did get a little turned around with the jumps between narrators but more so from the jumps in time. Having three characters doing it, and sometimes getting multiple memories of the same event, was a bit confusing. But I do not know how else Mr. Dubus could have created the story he did without doing just that. This is not a light and easy beach read. This is a get yourself lost in another world and eat ice cream because you are feeling the characters angst kind of read.

I picked up this book because I loved "Sand and Fog" by the same author. Although I didn't like this one as much, there are many similar elements. Dubus is a master at characterization. Every character is clearly drawn and many layered. As the story progresses, the reader becomes more familiar with and more attached to the characters. Although it took me some time to warm up to the storyline and the seemingly random way every character's story is told, by about halfway I was hooked.

There are no shocking revelations here, no surprising twists and turns, just the story of the lasting impact of a horrible event on three characters -- a mother, a daughter, and a father. Dubus focuses on the aftermath of a murder and how each character dealt with the death over the course of 40 years. The real story is one of resilience and redemption.

Some actions are unforgivable. Though our Western culture is steeped in a religion that exhorts us to forgive those who trespass against us, there’s not a whole lot of guidance on how to do that or how we should live if we can’t forgive someone. In Andre Dubus’s shattering new novel, Gone So Long, we follow a daughter and her grandmother who cannot forgive a man for murdering the girl’s mother. The novel builds and builds to the moment when daughter and father meet again after 40 years…but to get there we have to hear the whole story and its aftermath first.

Susan has been adrift since she was three years old, when her father murdered her mother in their ocean-side cottage. All her life, she’s been told that she’s a spit of her beautiful mother. Male eyes follow her the same way they followed her mother. She is constantly warned away from boys—who might do to her what her father did to her mother—by her emotionally damaged grandmother in harsh terms. Four decades later, Susan is married to the most patient man on the planet while she works on cathartic documents that move back and forth from novel-modeled-on-the-author’s-life to autofictional memoir. The documents bring up so much that she was repressing, so much that has lead her astray from her potential.

While we work our way through Susan’s current life and her memories, we also get her father, Daniel’s, version of events. We see his current life as an ex-felon who works re-caning and restoring old furniture. We also get, in letter form, a terrible tale of jealous. I was worried for long chapters that Daniel—and the narrative—would blame Susan’s mother for her own murder. Fortunately, Daniel squarely takes the blame. He was a jealous monster and he took a life. Daniel’s problem now is that so much time has passed without contact with his daughter that he has no idea how to even approach her, even if he knew what to say to her.

In addition to the book’s meditations on forgiveness and the potential impossibility of forgiveness, I was struck at the emerging theme of a person’s worth. Susan and her mother, along with other women mentioned in Gone So Long, are called cheap when they wear make-up and revealing clothing. When women are talked about as mothers, the speakers (Daniel, Susan’s grandmother, etc.) seem to elevate the worth of these women. I was fascinated by the way that language about money is repurposed to talk about a person’s worth to society and others, as if being considered “cheap” justifies others’ taking advantage or hurting women. This theme about worth and “cheapness,” I thought, did a lot to argue against any excuses that what Daniel did was justified. A person’s worth comes from the fact that they are human beings and should not be diminished because someone is jealous or judgmental.

Gone So Long is a slow novel. It’s an emotional, thoughtful novel. It’s the kind of novel that lingers in the mind long after you’ve finished it, because it contains a world of truth. The universe in this novel is realistically imperfect. The characters are so psychologically rich that I could easily picture them sitting in their hot Florida rooms as they wondered about themselves and what the hell they should say to each other. I wasn’t immediately hooked the way I was with House of Sand and Fog, but I’m glad I hung in there. I was more than rewarded by the end of Gone So Long. This brief review doesn’t do the book justice.

“I've been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But everything changes
And my friends seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore”

-- The Heart of the Matter, Don Henley, Songwriters: Mike Campbell / Don Henley / John David Souther

The last time Daniel saw her, in 1973, she was just three years old, his little girl, their Suzie Woo Woo, Danny and Linda’s baby girl. It was also the last time he would ever see Linda, one jealous rage too many. For years, all he will see is the small cell where he lives and the others that live there, as well.

Susan’s grandmother, Lois, moves to Florida after selling the arcade they’d owned in that small beach town north of Boston, leaving the bad things that had happened behind. Lois wants to shelter Suzie from the memories of that night, and keep her as far from her father as possible. Lois becomes an antique dealer, and for a time things are relatively normal, Suzie becomes a typically rebellious teenager, and eventually matures.

Suzie, now Susan, a woman who is married to Bobby Dunn, now in her forties, and she teaches college level English not too far from where her grandmother lives. In addition to that, she is also struggling with writing her own memoir, snippets of which are woven through this book.

Danny lives in this seaside city, where a handful of the older brick buildings still remain. In his sixties now, his health in decline, he makes a living recaning chairs, revisiting the past in his mind, frequently. He hasn’t talked to, seen, or heard from his daughter Susan in any sense through these years. His Suzie Woo Woo. He feels every year of his life, and then some, and seeks a way to make some kind of amends before his chance is gone. He’s trying to put his affairs in order, and plans to leave everything he might have to Susan, but he feels a need to make an explanation of this gesture, so that it is not rejected outright.

This is the first novel of Andrew Dubus III that I have read. While this was not an easy read, I found it to be very compelling and worthwhile. It is occasionally dark, and it is not a book one can skim through or allow your thoughts to wander about while reading. It is beautifully written, raw and gritty, and heartbreaking.

In Gone So Long Dubus manages to reveal a little about each character at a time, leisurely, allowing time to follow a natural course, allowing the course of events to unfold gradually, naturally. I felt mesmerized into following him on this journey, despite this ever-present feeling that all would not necessarily end well, but that, in the end, it would feel… true. True to the characters and, despite it seeming desperately dismal, this felt as natural a course of events for these characters. They are all flawed and imperfect, needing mercy and absolution. There is, after all, beauty to be found through forgiveness, as imperfect as it may be.



Pub Date: 02 OCT 2018


Many thanks for the ARC provided by W.W. Norton & Company

Andre Dubus III is the master of complex and complicated human beings in situations challenging the limits of the reader's empathy. This is a story with a long arc, In contrast to the riveting House of Sand and Fog, these people have lives that have been warped and rerouted by actions that seem unredeemable. Therein lies the story, well told and propulsive. As a footnote, Dubus' memoir Townie is an eye opening companion read.

This book is not for the casual reader. It is long and dense and is hard to follow in places. Dubus employs every literary technique known to man. The perspective changes from first person to third person, there are long passages of stream of consciousness in which there is little or no punctuation, and there are passages where the protagonist switches from current perspective to past and then to quoting from a novel within the novel. Reading this book is like listening to the discordant jazz music that Bobby studies, which to Lois sounded "like a bunch of drunks playing toy instruments on a sinking ship."
The book is also hard to read because the subject matter is dark. Daniel murders his young wife in a fit of jealousy. He comforts his 3 year old daughter, Susan, in his bed until the paramedics and police arrive. Daniel's mother in law, Lois, declares her lifelong hatred of the man who killed her daughter and hopes he rots in prison for the rest of his life. The novel is set 40 years later. Daniel has been out of prison for 25 years, but has never forgiven himself. Susan is a middle aged woman who has jumped from relationship to relationship and has never come to terms with the loss of her mother. Lois is old and angry. Daniel, who is dying, seeks out his daughter, but has no idea what he will say to explain himself. The book moves like molasses, switching back and forth between the characters. It is a hard read, but the ending is captivating.
I am a big fan of Dubus and have read all of his novels. This one is the most sophisticated and the most difficult to read. I give it five stars, not because I enjoyed it, but because it is a masterpiece.
Thanks to W. W. Norton & Co. and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

WOW. Another delicious book by this author. Heartbreaking at times, the characters stole my heart and left me wanting more. As I want more form the author!

I loved "The House of Sand and Fog" and couldn't wait to read his newest book. It didn't disappoint. Andre Dubus III is a master of building up suspense. The plot was straight forward, Man kills wife, young daughter witnesses the crime, he goes to jail and then the story really begins. Will his daughter want to see him 20 years after he is released from jail?

Given that the House of Sand and Fog is one of my favorite books, I was so excited to receive this ARC from NetGalley. I was not disappointed as Andre Dubus has an amazing ability to write about characters that are so complicated. The story is dark and not a "beach read" however you will quickly become involved in their lives. The writer has an ability to present moral dilemmas and situations where there is no clear good guy or bad guy and I love that as it is a reflection of life, rarely is anything black and white. I found the ending to be a bit disappointing however this book will stay with you long after you finish the last page.