The Interloper: A Novel-Quality Guarantee

Description

The debut from the author of Mouth to Mouth, a novel about obsession that makes for obsessive reading.

All Owen Patterson wantsis an normal life, a happy marriage, and a stable family. But following the brutaland random murder of his brother-in-law, that dream is shattered. A year later, hiswife is still in mourning and his in-laws won’t talk about anything but their deadson.

The murderer, Henry Joseph Raven, has been put in prison, but as far as Owenis concerned, prison isn’t punishment enough. He embarks on a quest to “balance thescales of justice,” writing letters to Henry Raven under the pseudonym Lily plan: to seduce the murderer, make him fall in love with his fictional correspondent,and then break his heart. From one letter to the next, Lily Hazelton develops intoa curious amalgam of details from Owen’s imagination, snatches of his difficult childhood,and memories of his cousin Eileen, a suicide who was his first true love. Not entirelyin control of his own creation, Owen dives headfirst into the correspondence, onlyto find himself caught in the trap he’s set for Henry Raven.

Bringing together anepistolary game of cat and mouse with the harrowing record of one man’s psychologicalcollapse, The Interloper is a compelling and original debut from a bold new writer.

“As assured and sumptuously written as any first novel I’ve encountered—AntoineWilson’s prose sings, and the story he tells here is both clever and is writing at its very best.” — T. Coraghessan Boyle