the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Romania and Denmark, and she has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Macavity, Anthony, ITW Thriller and Strand Book Award. In addition to her novels, she has published many short stories and collaborated with Megan Abbott on the graphic novel Normandy Gold.
Gaylin applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, We Are Watching, and reported the following:
At the start of page 69, We Are Watching’s Meg Russo is trying to balance some heavy emotions – the enduring grief over her husband’s death in a car accident that she believes herself responsible for, a lack of connection with her 18-year-old daughter, Lily, who has become increasingly distant in her grief, and the stress of reopening her bookstore for the first time since the accident. Overshadowing everything though, is the fact that her employee, Sara Beth, has told Meg that her estranged father Nathan Lerner has called, and she needs to call him back. It brings back some unpleasant memories:Learn more about the book and author at Alison Gaylin's website.Meg was a senior in high school when her mother when her mother died from MRSA, which she most likely contracted when she cut herself on a thorn in their rose garden. Mom and especially Dad were distrustful of modern medicine, so by the time they realized she was suffering from something that couldn’t be cured with nettles or dandelion tea, it was already too late. The antibiotics wouldn’t take. Meg came home from school to a note that read, Mom’s in intensive care, and days later, her beloved mother was gone. Meg was shell-shocked. That was the only way to describe it. As though a bomb had gone off inside her, turning her heart to ash.Reading this page, I was surprised at how much it sums up both Nathan’s character and one of the central relationships of the book – that of Meg and Nathan, whose arc toward understanding and trusting each other is essential to the plot. It also alludes to the question that drives the suspense in the book: Is Nathan as paranoid as Meg believes him to be – or is there really a “secret cabal” out to get him and his family? Throughout the rest of the book, the latter proves increasingly true. And Meg finds herself questioning the motivations of nearly everyone around her – including friends and neighbors she’s known for years. Meanwhile, Nathan learns to better understand his daughter and granddaughter – and how his own overarching grief and self- absorption has kept him from protecting them against a very real evil. Throughout the book, Meg and Nathan’s growing understanding of each other – and of the forces out to get them – becomes the one thing that can possibly save their lives. Will either of them take action before it’s too late?
She received no comfort from Nathan. Lost in his own grief, he locked himself in his studio every day, smoking ashtrays full of joints and reciting the Kaddish again and again and again. He grew increasingly paranoid, babbling about religious zealots plotting Shira’s death, some secret cabal of anti-Semites that hated rock and roll. They murdered her! he’d shout late at night from the other end of the house as Meg tried to get to sleep. Not caring whom he frightened into hours of insomnia. It’s Kennedy all over again!
The Page 69 Test: Into the Dark.
The Page 69 Test: What Remains of Me.
The Page 69 Test: If I Die Tonight.
The Page 69 Test: The Collective.
--Marshal Zeringue
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