Do Not Find Me

As this deeply felt contemporary novel opens, Meggie is going through the effects of her recently deceased father, who raised her single-handedly since the untimely death of her mother. Among her father's effects, she finds an old envelope containing a scrap of paper with the enigmatic scrawl "Do not find me," a tantalizing clue to a part of her father's life about which she knows nothing. Her attempts to glean more information from her father's relatives and friends prove fruitless, but readers soon hear at length, in her father's own voice, about the long, tempestuous relationship he had with a woman in New York before settling down in Minnesota and marrying Meggie's mother. The chapters alternate between Meggie's voice and her father's, and it is in the former that Novak's writing is at its most textured and incisive, revealing Meggie's psyche as she re-evaluates her life as a daughter and as a wife in a loveless and remote marriage. By contrast, the story of Meggie's father in New York, though more eventful, is less surely told and, much like Meggie, the reader is likely to find him ultimately unknowable. Nevertheless, Novak's engaging story and elegant prose make for a worthwhile read. (May)