“This book packs a punch. While slender, every sentence, every word, is well-chosen and thought-provoking. However, as intellectually stimulating as it is, it’s still accessible and enjoyable. Every chapter, though small, gives you a snapshot of who a character is and drives the plot along. I picked this book up on a whim and from the very first page I couldn’t put it down. I can’t recommend this book enough!”
— Erin Gold, pages: a bookstore, Manhattan Beach, CA
“Read this now, because everyone you know will be talking about it by early 2019.” –Washington Post
From the award-winning author of Ways to Disappear, a taut, timely novel about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down.
On an unnamed island country ten years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime, Lena suspects the powerful senator she was involved with back in her student activist days is taking advantage of a young woman who’s been introducing him at rallies. When the young woman ends up dead, Lena revisits her own fraught history with the senator and the violent incident that ended their relationship.
Why didn’t Lena speak up then, and will her family’s support of the former regime still impact her credibility? What if her hunch about this young woman’s death is wrong?
What follows is a riveting exploration of the cost of staying silent and the mixed rewards of speaking up in a profoundly divided country. Those Who Knew confirms Novey’s place as an essential new voice in American fiction.
