“I generally feel skeptical when someone says they’ve read a book in one sitting. Don’t you ever get thirsty, answer the phone, or want to check on the basketball scores? But Don’t I Know You? truly is one of those books you tear through at a tremendous clip, driven, I believe, by the anxiety-ridden delusion that if you can get to the end in time you can save Karen Shepard’s delicately drawn characters from their fates. Shepard’s gritty, sympathetic evocation of the pre-boom Upper West Side and a handful of its haunted inhabitants is as logical and troubling as a dream, and even when its central mystery is more or less solved, the larger mysteries it evokes remain chillingly intact.”
—Scott Spencer, National Book Award finalist for A Ship Made of Paper
“In spare, elliptical, dispassionate prose, Karen Shepard drops the stone of murder into a pond and watches as the widening ripples affect even those far removed from the victim. Don’t I Know You? is a chilly, disquieting mystery in which the answer is always ‘no.’”
—Ron Hansen, author of Mariette in Ecstasy and the National Book Award finalist Atticus
“[An] intriguing mystery in four parts…the reader is led to sort through disparate strands to discover the connections and to wonder what happened and why…making for a nicely paced story.”
—Library Journal
“[In this] masterful third book…Shepard’s narrative unravels Gina’s murder obliquely, through her characters’ layered relationships, leading to a conclusion that’s satisfying, haunting, and well deserved.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Karen Shepard’s Don’t I Know You? unravels the mystery of a single mother’s death obliquely, through the poignant gaze of the victim’s twelve-year-old son and the layered relationships of unnervingly familiar characters.”
—Vogue
Don’t I Know You? is both a literary novel and a mystery, but its mystery is less who committed the grisly crime on which it centers than the mysteries of human psychology…. [It has] precise, perfectly pitched prose and deep psychological insights…. And although each of the characters in this complex book comes fully alive, the reader is left with more questions than answers, a powerful reminder of the ways in which our knowledge is always limited.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Don’t I Know You? is a brilliantly understated and hauntingly evocative whodunit powered by characterization, an addictively intimate narrative, and an ultra-complex plot that will have readers guessing until the very last pages…. Easily one of the most intriguing mystery/thrillers of the year.”
—Barnes & Noble.com
“Shepard carries out this fascinating premise with exquisite skill, offering a trio of distinctive voices, doubting perspectives, and the small acts that build to momentous consequence.”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune
“[This] cunningly crafted jigsaw puzzle is colored by vibrant prose and capped by a you’ll-never-guess conclusion that’s not the least bit gimmicky. You might want to read it all over again.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Shepard has found a voice here that is strong and confident and full of wise observation.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“The author of this extraordinary whodunit does know you: She knows how a heart has misgivings. She also knows New York in the 1970s in every gritty detail. And she knows how to tell a good story. We read it in one standing.”
—More magazine
“Karen Shepard’s gripping whodunit…has a unique format: The story unfolds through the distinct perspectives of three characters, reminding you that reality is in the eye of the beholder.”
—Marie Claire
“The suspense only grows as the rippling effects of the murder are closely observed. Meanwhile, Shepard is almost offhanded in giving up the actual killer, thereby ensuring that the disclosure has stunning impact. Don’t I Know You? is both subtle and disturbing in just the right proportions.”
—New York Daily News
“Don’t I Know You? will no doubt be marketed as a hybrid form, a literary thriller or literary mystery or literary suspense novel, but in fact it adheres much more strenuously to straight-up literary realism. This is the way we live now: never knowing for sure the contents of another’s heart. Shepard’s haunting novel proposes the alluring mystery of a particular murder and its specific repercussions, but in doing so she also summons the larger mystery of human character, the multiple and complex circuitry that knits together the community in which unsolved violence occurs. The book is an insightful psychological thriller, but it’s also thrilling psychological insight.”
—Antonya Nelson, author of Talking in Bed and Female Trouble: Stories
ALSO BY KAREN SHEPARD
An Empire of Women
The Bad Boy’s Wife
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DON’T I KNOW YOU?. Copyright © 2006 by Karen Shepard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-196985-0
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