Familiar

A woman falls into an alternate version of her life but fails to convince anyone that her life was ever different in this stealthy and thought-provoking literary thriller. While on her annual pilgrimage to Wisconsin to visit her son Silas’s grave, Elisa Brown discovers, in a blink, that she’s wearing unfamiliar clothes and driving an unfamiliar car en route to an academic conference, where she is known as the graduate studies coordinator for a biotech center at an upstate New York university. It seems she’s exchanged her lab job for a less intellectual role; her “habitual, practical, inert” union with Derek is now a loving relationship (due to counseling, it turns out). And Silas did not die in a car accident, but he and his brother, Sam, are estranged from their parents and living in California, for reasons Derek won’t discuss. With no one to confide in about her growing sense of alienation and unease, Elisa seeks out specialists in alternate universes in her old field while going through the motions of her new routine. Lennon (Castle) succeeds by setting his odd, uncommon narrative in intimate terms that delve into Elisa’s sense of confusion. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct. 2)