No Book but the World
A Novel
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3.9 • 20 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Lush, dark and unsettling, No Book but the World haunted me for days. With great skill, Leah Hager Cohen takes us through a twisty and resonant tale about the price of secrets, the burden of family, the remnants of childhood we never leave behind.” —Megan Abbott, author of The End of Everything and Dare Me
From the acclaimed author of The Grief of Others and 2019's searing new novel Strangers and Cousins.
At the edge of a woods, on the grounds of a defunct “free school,” Ava and her brother, Fred, shared a dreamy and seemingly idyllic childhood—a world defined largely by their imaginations and each other’s presence. Everyone is aware of Fred’s oddness or vague impairment, but his parents’ fierce disapproval of labels keeps him free of evaluation or intervention, and constantly at Ava’s side.
Decades later, then, when Ava learns that her brother is being held in a county jail for a shocking crime, she is frantic to piece together what actually happened. A boy is dead. But could Fred really have done what he is accused of? As she is drawn deeper into the details of the crime, Ava becomes obsessed with learning the truth, convinced that she and she alone will be able to reach her brother and explain him—and his innocence—to the world.
Leah Hager Cohen brings her trademark intelligence to a psychologically gripping, richly ambiguous story that suggests we may ultimately understand one another best not with facts alone, but through our imaginations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cohen's fifth novel following The Grief of Others, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize, makes a strong addition to the growing field of novels involving revolutionary parenting philosophies. Ava Robbins looks back, after her parents' deaths, on the permissive upbringing that she and her brother, Freddy, received, based on the ideals of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She comments, "Much later, in college, when my disillusionment with my father was at its most excruciating... I discovered that the great philosopher, my father's idol and model, had deposited his own five children in a foundling hospital." Ava finds her way through the enormous freedom she is given, but Freddy runs greater risks, getting into fights during a brief period at public school and accepting dangerous dares from his friends. Ava realizes Freddy is troubled and possibly autistic, but her parents refuse to acknowledge the fact. In adulthood, following the death of her parents, Ava must decide whether she can or should bring Fred back into her life. Occasionally, Cohen strains to create more mystery than is really needed, but her story's hard and engaging central questions don't require suspense to capture the reader.
