Somebody Else's Daughter
By Elizabeth Brundage
(Plume, Paperback, 9780452295377, 352pp.)
Publication Date: April 2009
Categories: Psychological, Thrillers
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A taut, complex psychological thriller from the author of The Doctor's Wife
Like The Doctor's Wife - which The Boston Globe called "a compelling read"-Somebody Else's Daughter is a literary page-turner peopled with fascinating and disturbing characters. In the idyllic Berkshires, at the prestigious Pioneer School, there are dark secrets that threaten to come to light. Willa Golding, a student, has been brought up by her adoptive parents in elegant prosperity, but they have fled a mysterious and shameful past. Her biological father, a failing writer and former drug addict, needs to see the daughter he abandoned, and so he gains a teaching position at the school. A feminist sculptor initiates a reckless affair, the Pioneer students live in a world to which adults turn a blind eye, and the headmaster's wife is busy keeping her husband's current indiscretions well hidden. Building to a breathtaking collision between two fathers-biological and adoptive, past and present- Somebody Else's Daughter is both a suspenseful thriller and a probing study of richly conflicted characters in emotional turmoil.
Elizabeth Brundage is the author of The Doctor's Wife and holds an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received a James Michener Award.
1. Many of the book's characters mirror each other—Jack vs. Joe as unfaithful husbands; Joe and Claire, who both use sex as a commodity; Pearl and Willa, the orphaned daughters; Maggie and Candace, the wronged wives. Why does the author choose to use this device? What do we learn about the characters by comparing and contrasting their similarities and differences?
"[A] deft balancing act of taut plot and richly drawn characters. . .Brundage is a storyteller supreme."
-Wally Lamb
"Riveting...very moving and completely involving. . . Brundage is a brilliant novelist."
-Richard Bausch
"Brundage has a penchant for turning topical subjects into gripping novels...Sex, drugs, violence and murder are all in the Brundage mix."
-The Washington Post
"[A] well-turned thriller. . . Brundage writes with startling clarity."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A taut tale of suspense rounded out with sharp observations on parenting, adoption and the fraught business of keeping up appearances."
-New York Observer
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