EBOOK Outside of August

Critics and readers alike hailed Swimming, Joanna Hershon's fiction debut. ';Compelling,'  said the Washington Post, while Vanity Fair called Swimming a ';page-turning premiere.'  Now Hershon brings us her anticipated second novel, in which she vividly explores  the secrets of an American family. The Outside of August is a mesmerizing, beautifully  written story that combs the emotional landscape of its characters with power and  precision. For as long as Alice Green can remember, her elusive mother, Charlotte,  has moved in and out of family lifedisappearing relentlessly and often without explanation.  Despite the exotic clutter of souvenirs that detail Charlotte's international travels,  the Green's home becomes progressively hollow, as nothing but Charlotte can fill  the empty spaces. With their mother's tenuous presence, and their tender but distant  father working long hours, Alice and her brother, August, react in different ways.  While seeking constant affection from other women, August relies on an unspoken bond  with Charlotte that allows him a certain freedom. But Alice feels no such security  and grows increasingly unmoored, always in search of ways to keep her mother at home. When, years later, her unfettered brother becomes strangely remote, Alice journeys  to find him in an isolated beach town. It is there that a deeply buried secret will  have to unravel in order for Alice to come to terms with her fractured family and  her place within itand learn to let go of a mother she perhaps never really knew.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Joanna Hershon's A Dual Inheritance.