Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb is an interior novel. Told from one point of view in the hyper-intelligent self-talk of a middle-aged man, it starts slowly but the action builds, and by the end calls into question everything the protagonist knows about himself.
Nick Framingham has a lot of angst. It be could have been just his age, that he still lives in the town where he grew up, and his marriage has settled into polite routine for the sake of the kids. But six months ago, his best friend from childhood, the famous writer Rob Castor, murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself. This event shook the upstate New York village of Monarch to its core but seems to have shaken Nick most.
Although he had not seen Rob often in later years, their growing up together was seminal for Nick. Rob was always the leader, the attractive one, the adventurer, the golden boy. And he had been as close as a brother to nerdy Nick, whose home life was marred by a distant father and the trauma of losing his older brother. After Rob's death, Nick is obsessed with thoughts of Rob, and his world starts to unravel. None of this predicts mild-mannered Nick's trajectory, however, as first he, and then the reader, is treated to amazing revelations.
if (preg_match('/Be that as it may, Now You See Him is evocatively written and gamely asks the questions: How well do we know anyone? How well do we know ourselves?
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