by John Searles
I am forever indebted to my incredible agent, Joanna Pulcini, who works tirelessly on my behalf, reads draft after draft of my work with great care, and laughs with me along the way. On the foreign front, I am doubly blessed to have Linda Michaels and Teresa Cavanaugh taking on the world for me. On the film front, I am triply blessed to have the amazing Daryl Roth in my life, plus Matthew Schneider at CAA, and now Ross Katz too.
At Cosmopolitan, Kate White is a dear friend and fellow writer who offers me unending encouragement and support.
Alison Kolani read too many drafts of this story to count, and I owe her a gift certificate to every spa in the city.
For the help with Philip’s Spanish, I thank all the many dishwashers I’ve worked with over the years who taught me everything I know. Plus, Ann Luster, who was unfazed by the nasty e-mails I sent her, and John Hansen, who double-checked my dirty work.
There have been so many others who have read, commented, given me a place to write, or simply cheered me on over the years, and I owe each of them a huge heartfelt thanks: Betty Kelly, Susan Segrest, Alysa Wakin, Stacy Sheehan, Elizabeth Barnes, Amy Chiaro, Patricia Burke, Jan Bronson, Linda Chester, Gary Jaffe, Colleen Curtis, Carol Story, Andrea Sachs, Atoosa Rubenstein, Sara Nelson, Alison Brower, Amy Salit, Dawn Raffel, Chris Bohjalian, Wally Lamb, Frank McCourt, Terrence McNally, Adriana Trigiani, Melise Rose, Vivian Shipley, Richard and Linda Warren, Abigail Greene, Michele Promaulayko, Isabel Burton, Esther Crain, Jenny Benjamin, Sara Bodnar, Pat Cliff from Blue Heron Books in Key West, Rob Carlson, and the Caruso family—Birute, Mario, Paul, and Yanna—who never mind when I sneak away at family gatherings to write.
And, of course, I need to give my family the biggest thanks of all: my mom, my dad, my sister, Keri, my brother, Raymond, and Grandma Dottie too.
Finally, there are those two friends with the baby at Aggie’s so many years ago—they were special to me too.
PRAISE FOR
Strange but True
“This novel belongs to the That Terrible Night storytelling genre. It begins with the memory of a calamity, but the author, John Searles, is determined to keep the details shrouded in mystery. Searles’s chain-of-events approach to narrative is so linear that one missing sock in a laundry basket can lead, step by inexorable step, to the revelation of old secret crimes. And then it leads to new ones… The author’s omniscience is used to intriguing effect, especially in the book’s early stages. Information has been shuffled and withheld in ways that coax this novel along. Personal histories that seem to make sense are powerfully altered each time a disturbing new fact emerges. Searles ends on a note of furious action and redemption… You’ll race right through it.”
—Janet Maslin, New York Times
“Part thriller, part mystery, and part coming-of-age fable, this story of a high school quarterback’s tragic death—and a most unlikely pregnancy—will hold you transfixed… The characters are vividly alive… Searles writes with clear, efficient prose… Strange but True is like a carefully ordered set of snapshots, depicting what the characters’ lives were like before the watershed moment of Ronnie’s death, and what has become of them since that awful night… I felt powerless to put this book down.”
—Salon.com
“Strange but True is an imaginative and compelling novel about lives splintered by tragedy and relationships corroded by secrets; with vital prose, dark humor, and taut suspense, John Searles has created a novel that is sometimes eerie, sometimes thrilling, and always completely engaging.”
— Carolyn Parkhurst, bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel
“The emotions ring true on every page. These are living, breathing characters, and John Searles’s novel illuminates the intricate dynamics of families with humor, heart, and truth.”
—Augusten Burroughs,
bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Dry
“[A] poignant second novel… As Philip [Chase] and his mother exchange barbs in a vitriolic one-upmanship worthy of Eugene O’Neill’s family in Long Day’s Journey into Night, we’re led on a serpentine path to find out the origins of birth. Searles’s portrayal of a family in collective emotional agony is spellbinding. He manages to insinuate his way into their minds and push from inside—causing their fears and loneliness to float to the surface.”
— BookPage
“Strange but True is the absolute best novel I’ve read in a long, long time. Part psychological suspense, part character study, and all beautifully written, this is a page-turner with characters you can never forget.”
— Lisa Scottoline, bestselling author of Killer Smile
“Crisp, clear prose and shifting perspectives take us into the minds and motivations of the characters… A compulsively readable exploration of the ways in which lives can pivot on one horrible occurrence.”
— Booklist
“Strange but True is a mysterious and suspenseful novel about family and redemption … crammed with regret and mystery and intrigue and suspense. There are plenty of references to popular culture and flashes of humor—an odd New York apartment shared with a snake and a mynah bird that demands the occasional martini.”
—Portland Press Herald
“Funny, mysterious, and poignant, with just enough despair to make the path of redemption open wide, John Searles has created a novel to reread and treasure. This story is filled with the angst of what might have been, the ache of true love and the terror of loss. This is a genuine page-turner written so beautifully, you never want it to end.”
—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of
Lucia, Lucia and The Queen of the Big Time
“Strange but True will have you on the edge of your seat.”
— Redbook
“In Strange but True, the mysteries are domestic, the characters from families blown apart by events that change lives in instants… The reader is let inside their houses, far-flung neighbors in the country town of Radnor, Pennsylvania. You are in their basements, inside their thoughts, then out on the highway, driving by, wondering what goes on inside. Searles addresses the reader throughout, reminding us that he’s the writer: ‘You know what’s coming next, but you don’t know all of it.’ This is the reason we keep reading.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“Exquisitely odd yet instantly recognizable, as strange but true as the hidden life of one’s next-door neighbor. The novel moves in unexpected directions throughout… Its steady gravitational pull—readers should expect to stay up late for this one—testifies to the solidity of its bedrock impressions, cast by an author with extraordinary powers of observation… Yet while readers will enjoy traveling to the heart of the mystery, what they’ll cherish most in this accomplished novel are its startling real characters… all perfectly crafted. Searles’s novel should find a wide and grateful readership.”
— Publishers Weekly
“As in his bestselling debut, Boy Still Missing, Searles studies how the impact of a single, sudden event can radiate outward, cruelly accruing all sorts of other badness in its spread… He wisely doesn’t make promises he can’t keep, and they may not be for everyone. That they one day may, though, shimmer in the stealthy beauty of this novel.”
—New York Daily News
“[A] suspenseful read that explores the intensity of the mother/son bond.”
— MORE
“This energetic and witty read is reminiscent of the potboiler plot that drove Searles’s debut novel… Searles gives us an examination of the faces of grief, in particular the grief of women… Strange but True shifts adroitly between various points of view… the plot rocks, but the grief is in the details, from Melissa’s disinclination to fix the facial scars she acquired during the car crash that killed her beloved, to Charlene’s unwillingness to let go of her rabid sadness.”
— Newsday (New York)
“Intrigue on the main line… Hilarious… [A] shocking psychological suspense… A journey filled with twists and surprises.”
“You can see why the author, John Searles, hit [it on with] Strange but True for the title of this weird and wonderful follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut. Combining the best elements of a suspense novel with the emotional heft of a complex family drama, it’s that rarest of literary treats: a brainy beach book. Dig in.”
—Elle
“Everyone in Strange but True is scarred in some way… Besides rage and sorrow, Searles tells us, these characters are about to experience real danger. This heavy darkness is one of the many reasons to read this wonderfully entertaining novel at the beach.”
—Esquire
“Searles is a remarkably incisive writer with a unique ability to key into erstwhile tragedies and recognizable characters without caricature… [Philip] Chase has his eyes opened to the potential of redemption through a bittersweet twist of fate. A series of wittily drawn supporting characters and a list of neatly remarkable sideshow circumstances and red herrings, coupled with Searles’s leaps in time and tone, make True quite strange indeed; a luminously eerie novel.”
—Philadelphia City Paper
“With his deep respect for the mysteries of everyday life, John Searles has achieved a masterpiece of mood, malice, and visionary love. So ardently did this story have me in its clutches, that I still feel shaken by its beauty.”
— Laurie Fox, author of The Lost Girls
Other Works
Boy Still Missing
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is made to reprint the following:
Last stanza from “A Curse Against Elegies,” from All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1962 by Anne Sexton, renewed 1990 by Linda G. Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from “Suicide Note,” from Live or Die by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1966 by Anne Sexton, renewed 1994 by Linda G. Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White. Copyright © 1952 by E. B. White, renewed © 1980 by E. B. White. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
STRANGE BUT TRUE. Copyright © 2004 by John Searles. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
* * *
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Searles, John.
Strange but true / John Searles. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-688-17571-6 (alk. paper)
I. Title.
PS3569.E1788S73 2004
813’.6—dc22
2004044980
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ISBN-10: 0-06-072179-0 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 9780060721794 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062191076
05 06 07 08 09 /RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
P.S
Insights, Interviews & More…
About the Author
2 Meet John Searles
4 Excerpts from Searles’s Diary Scrolled on Paper Napkins
About the Book
6 Behind the Pages
9 Fact or Fiction?
Read on
13 Have You Read?
About the Author
JOHN SEARLES is the deputy editor of Cosmopolitan, where he oversees all book coverage for the magazine. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other national newspapers and magazines. He lives in New York City.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Meet John Searles
JOHN SEARLES was born and raised in Monroe, Connecticut, the son of a truck-driver father and stay-at-home mom. After his high school graduation, his parents used their connections to get him a job at the nearby Dupont factory, where he gathered parts for various job orders. It didn’t take him long to realize the place wasn’t for him—three hours into the first day, he pretended to be sick and left, though when his parents found out, they sent him right back.
After that, John set his sights on becoming the first person in his family to attend college. To save money for tuition, he stayed on at the factory and worked a night-job as a telemarketer, keeping people on the phone for hours asking important questions like, “On a scale of one to ten, how do you rate Bubble Yum in terms of its chewability?”
When he finally saved enough money, John quit the factory and began commuting to Southern Connecticut State University. He majored in business, because he thought it was practical, but minored in creative writing, because it was something he loved. Although he barely got by in economics and calculus, he was fortunate to win a number of writing awards from the university. Encouraged by this recognition, he moved to New York City to pursue a master’s degree in creative writing at New York University. While there, he was twice awarded a major fiction prize for his short stories and also began writing a novel entitled, Stone in the Airfield.
Following his time at NYU, John waited tables and attempted to publish his novel. His most memorable rejection came when an editor mistakenly left this note in with the manuscript: “I could barely make it to page 60 and I feel really sorry for anyone who has to read the whole thing.” Soon afterward, John attended a writer’s conference in South Carolina, where he met the fiction editor of Redbook. She liked his writing and offered him a freelance job reading short story submissions for fifty cents a story. It wasn’t much, but he preferred reading to serving Caesar salads and nachos, so he took that job for over a year until he was offered a part-time position in the books department at Cosmopolitan. John planned to give Cosmo a try for a few weeks then quit if it got in the way of his fiction writing. Many years later, he is still at the magazine, now as the deputy editor, overseeing all book excerpts and reviews.
Along the way, John began writing Boy Still Missing after the first sentence came to him while cleaning under his bed. In 2001, the book was published and went onto become a national bestseller. Hailed as “riveting” by the New York Times and “hypnotic” by Entertainment Weekly, the novel inspired Time magazine to name him a “Person to Watch,” and the New York Daily News to name him a “New Yorker to Watch.” His second novel, Strange but True, also a national bestseller, was praised as “sinister and complex” by Janet Maslin of the New York Times and “extraordinary” by Publishers Weekly. Both novels have been optioned for film. John can be seen frequently on shows like Weekend Today, CBS’s Early Show, ABC’s Live! with Regis & Kelly, and CNN, where he appears to discuss his favorite book selections.
“An editor mistakenly left this note in with the manuscript: ‘I could barely make it to page 60 and I feel really sorry for anyone who has to read the whole thing.’”
Excerpts from Searles’s Diary Scrolled on Paper Napkins
As I MENTIONED in these pages, I waited tables for many years while putting myself through college and graduate school, then while I was first trying to get published. Whenever I needed to escape during my shift, I hid in the bathroom where I kept a diary of sorts on paper napkins. I had forgotten these napkin diaries until I moved a few years ago, and discovered hundreds in a box beneath my bed. I’m sharing three of these entries here.
“She said, ‘You deal with them. I’m afraid I might pull out a gum’”
8/1/91
In the bathroom at Breakaway. There is some bitch on table 99 who just grabbed my shirt and called me over to co
unt the croutons in her Caesar salad. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Only six croutons, John. This is a rip-off!” I went back and filled a bowl of them for her and told her from now on it was an all you can eat crouton deal at Breakaway—just for her. When I told Boo [the manager] she was sitting on a bucket in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. She said, “You deal with them. I’m afraid I might pull out a gun.”
Well, back to work… John
NOT DATED
In the bathroom at Breakaway. Guess what? I went on an interview at Cosmopolitan magazine today for a part-time position in the books department. I wore a jacket that I bought at the Salvation Army for twelve bucks. When I stepped off the elevator, I felt totally out of place (not like Redbook where people are more laid back). Anyway, the woman who interviewed me didn’t seem very interested. She kept asking why I didn’t have a resume. I told her that writers don’t have resumes, which I think is true. Anyway, I doubt I’ll get it, which is okay because I’m not sure I want it, even though it would be better than waiting tables.
