Gottlieb is a fantastic writer, but the plot of this was just so-so. I kept think there would be greater revelations or more plot twists, but there just weren't and then it ended. The "major" plot developments are also pretty lame. I found myself skimming towards the end and ultimately was glad it was a short book.

From the book:

"He used to say that nouns were bits of two-sided tape that made symbols stick to life. He once told me all of poetry was contained in the b of the word subtle."

I enjoyed Gottlieb's style and the twists of plot that took place but I never felt any connection to the main character. He seemed to drift through life, expecting others to make his life have some significance. He deserved what he got.

“Now You See Him” starts out with the deaths of a semi-famous writer, Rob Castor, and his estranged girlfriend in a murder/suicide, but quickly veers off into a laundry list of the problems currently being faced by a close friend of the writer. The book is not about Castor’s death, instead it is a character study of the people who are left behind by the tragedy, their feelings and coping strategies.

Nick Framingham was one of Rob’s best friends from childhood, he grew up almost as part of the Castor family, dated Rob’s sister Belinda, and knew Rob better than anyone else. Or so he thought, as the revelation that his friend was a murderer is almost more than he can bear. Nick’s marriage, already on shaky ground, really begins to founder when Nick immerses himself in his own misery.

As media attention awakens, and the interviews begin Nick finds himself facing one unwanted revelation after another. He learns things about Rob, about Belinda, and most importantly about himself and his family. There are so many layers upon layers of secrets to this story that turning the pages is like peeling an onion.

Ann Patchett the author of the award winning Bel Canto (2001) calls Now You See Him “a true literary page-turner in which a string of startling revelations unfold within the constructs of lush and beautiful prose. It is at turns both heartbreaking and breathtaking." Little more needs to be said, other than that this book is a fantastic journey into the human psyche, which is all the more fascinating because the characters feel so real.

Reviewed by Sarra Borne (Hectaizani)

Very interesting and surprising twist near the end. It sort of sneaks up on you but once you realise it's coming, WHOA.

The writing in this book is, for the most part, wonderful. It was the great writing--evocative descriptions of relationships and actions--that saved this story for me from being awful. In its essence, the plot is predictable and depressing (it's nice when a book lets it characters have even one or two positive moments, which this book did not). The plot synopsis is fairly simple: a famed (at least in his home town) author commits a murder-suicide, and that sets the narrator into a deep downward spiral. My real problem with the book is that at the end, the narrator has apparently learned nothing; if I have to read about the guy's spiral into misery, it'd be nice to have him at least grow a little from it. The writing is willing, but the story is weak.

I have tried no fewer than four times to read this book, and I just cannot make myself finish. With apologies to those friends who insisted it was one of the best they'd recently read, I found it inflated, offensive, and tedious. I kept waiting for the much-touted "suspenseful" "lyrical" "page-turner" aspects to kick in, but they must have been omitted from my copy.

Although this novel does not come out until February, I got an ARC and devoured it. A deceptively simple plot about a man reeling from the recent death of a friend, is actually an deep look at marriage, friendship, and the power of the past over the present. I loved the language and the writing style of this book, which pulled me in immediately. Although the subject matter and tone could be seen as depressing, they also seemed very real to me. An early sex scene rivals the one in McEwan's On Chesil Beach for making the reader squirm, although for different reasons. As we watch the lead character's marriage implode, we also learn more about his relationship with his dead friend. You may not sympathize with the choices the protagonist makes, but you will want to see where those choices take him is this truly gorgeously written book.

This could have been a good book, but the author is just too wordy - rather than weaving a world you can escape into, you keep being reminded about how clever a writer this is, how well he uses words. Sorry, but for me, that needs to not be quite so obvious. It felt like an editor's touch was sorely lacking.

This book is so dry it's almost unbearable. I don't understand how anyone could call it a "page-turner." It was a real struggle to continue with this one as long as I did. There's very little plot to speak of; the story just kind of stagnates. Gottlieb isn't a bad writer, really, but he's not a very gifted storyteller.