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Published Jun 2009
432 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Dismantlement = Freedom
Henry, Tess, Winnie and Suz banded together in college to form the Compassionate Dismantlers. Following the first rule of their manifesto – "To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart" – these daring misfits spend the summer after graduation in a remote cabin in the Vermont woods committing acts of meaningful vandalism, and plotting elaborate, sometimes dangerous, pranks. But everything changes when one particularly twisted experiment ends in Suz's death and the others decide to cover it up.
Nearly a decade later, Henry and Tess are living just an hour's drive from the old cabin. Each are desperate to move on from the summer of the Dismantlers, but the past isn’t ready to let them go. When a victim of their past pranks commits suicide – apparently triggered by a mysterious Dismantler-style postcard – it sets off a chain of eerie events that threatens to engulf Henry, Tess, and their precocious nine-year-old daughter Emma. Is there someone who wants to reveal their secrets? Is it possible that Suz did not really die – or has she somehow found a way back?
"Starred Review. A prank gone wrong drives this outstanding novel from bestseller McMahon." - Publishers Weekly
"Sometimes beautifully written and extraordinarily imaginative; the only thing it lacks is human interest." - Kirkus Reviews
"McMahon fashions a fresh and entrancing ghost-in-the-woods tale replete with startling psychoses, delectable Hitchcockian motifs, and dangerous attractions." - Booklist
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A native of Connecticut, Jennifer McMahon lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.
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