Antonya Nelson
Bound
(Bloomsbury, November 2010)
Kirkus’s Best of 2010
New York Times Notable Book 2010
Antonya Nelson is known for her razor-sharp depictions of contemporary family life in all of its sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious complexity. Her latest novel has roots in her own youth in
Wichita, in the neighborhood stalked by the serial killer known as BTK (Bind, Torture, and Kill). A story of wayward love and lost memory, of public and private lives twisting out of control, Bound is Nelson’s most accomplished and emotionally riveting work.
Catherine and Oliver, young wife and older entrepreneurial husband, are negotiating their difference in age and a plethora of well-concealed secrets. Oliver, now in his sixties, is a serial adulterer and has just fallen giddily in love yet again. Catherine, seemingly placid and content, has ghosts of a past she scarcely remembers. When Catherine’s long-forgotten high school friend dies and leaves Catherine the guardian of her teenage daughter, that past comes rushing back. As Oliver manages his new love, and Catherine her new charge and darker past, local news reports turn up the volume on a serial killer who has reappeared after years of quiet.
In a time of hauntings and new revelations, Nelson’s characters grapple with their public and private obligations, continually choosing between the suppression or indulgence of wild desires. Which way they turn, and what balance they find, may only be determined by those who love them most.
Praise for Bound
“‘You can live a second life under your first one,’ the story begins, ‘something functioning covertly like a subway beneath a city, a disease inside the flesh. I did once for several years.’ That tantalizing opening made readers long for the characters to be revealed and defined in a broader panorama. In ‘Bound’, Nelson makes her story as big as it should be, and gives her characters room to run.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“In Ms. Nelson’s world new beginnings are hard won and often costly. “To realize how lucky she was to have survived her own incautious past always sent a shudder through Catherine,” she writes. But the novel ends with these words: ‘You could change your life.’”
–The New York Times
“Bound examines the powerful pull of family, the value of loyalty, and the surprisingly durable bonds of friendship. Told in nuanced prose, Bound has all the suspense of a mystery novel balanced by the soulful characterizations and piercing psychological insights of a literary work.”
–Critical Mob
“A small gem—more understated than Nelson’s recent stories, but equally sharp and deeply moving.”
–Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
”Nelson’s prose looks to be as sleekly tough-minded as ever. “The dog had two impulses. One was to stay with the car, container of civilization, and the other was to climb through the ruined window into the wild.” That’s an impulse we all share, and I’m betting that Nelson will nail it. Essential for those serious about contemporary literature.”
–Library Journal
“Nelson writes with wonderful grace and skill, each word carefully chosen, each passage carefully constructed. This beautiful collection is another remarkable accomplishment for a writer often hailed as one of our most talented storytellers.”
–Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review for Nothing Right)
Antonya Nelson is the author of nine books of fiction, including the short story collection Nothing Right and the novels Talking in Bed, Nobody’s Girl, and Living to Tell.