The Fall of Lisa Bellow

A middle-class suburban family, comfortable in a life that has provided them with “a lovely home and roomy van and a reliable second car,” is the subject of the sharp and suspenseful novel from the author of The Broken Places. Parents Claire and Mark, who share a dental practice, have just begun to recover from a freak baseball-practice accident that has left their son, high school senior Evan, nearly blind in one eye when their daughter, 13-year-old Meredith, finds herself the victim of an armed robbery at a local deli. During the incident Meredith’s classmate Lisa is kidnapped, while Meredith is left lying on the floor. Traumatized, over the next few months she retreats gradually into her own imaginary world. The novel’s tension arises as much from Perabo’s insight into a complex and changing family dynamic as from the horror of an unusual but believable situation. Perabo’s female characters are particularly strong. Meredith’s struggles to make sense of the middle-school social hierarchy parallel Claire’s efforts to overcome her ambivalence about motherhood, and both are heightened by the attack and its aftermath. Survivor’s guilt takes on a unique form here, as the novel plays with the reader’s understanding of what is actually going on in Meredith’s world. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Agency (Mar.)