The Done Thing

In her second novel, Manaster (You Could Be Home by Now) continues to grapple with the nature of family and tragedy. Lida Stearl’s life was changed forever when her sister, Barbra, was murdered by Barbra’s husband, Clarence Lusk, and Lida stepped up to raise Barbra and Clarence’s young daughter. With the girl fully grown, Lida begins to dwell on her sister’s murder. Prompted by boredom and a looming court date, she begins to write to Clarence, pretending to be a young woman, in an effort to gain insight into the man she has hated for so long. Lida’s relationship with her former brother-in-law becomes increasingly intimate as Clarence opens up to her epistolary persona. As the deception continues, Lida is forced to face the foundations for her hate and question how families can forgive one another. Telling the story through an often unlikable narrator whose visceral pain makes her sympathetic even at her cruelest, Manaster creates a difficult situation with no clear solution. In this engrossing story about the effects that vengeance can have on love, Manaster refuses to take the happy, easy way out, instead leaving her strikingly relatable characters with just enough room to breathe. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Pande Literary (Oct.)