"Red Leaves" written by Thomas H. Cook was a 2006 winner of the "Barry Award" for best novel. This novel is in the "Suspense/Thriller" genre and "Psychological Drama" sub-genre. Also by Mr. Cook see "The Quest for Anna Klein" (see my review for this novel).
The story deals with the complex emotional and psychological underpinnings of three families whose fates are tied to certain tragic events. The story is told in the first person by one of the main characters in the tale. Typical of Mr. Cook's writing style, the prose is rich and complex metaphorically. The language easily and naturally coaxes the reader onward; drawing him silently into the drama as a participant to the events that unfold.
The story is told by one Eric Moore as he grapples with events that indentify him as a son, a father, a brother and a husband. Eric, now a grown man, is forced to relive episodes of his youth and examine what he thought he knew about his relationship with his father and brother in view of the tragic deaths of his mother and sister. With his current family, Eric must face the growing chasm that grows between him, his son and wife when Eric's son Keith is accused of committing a crime and Eric suspects his wife Meredith of cheating on him. Finally, Eric must deal with his neighbor, Vince Giordano, a once friend who alienates Eric with his hatred; a result of his eight year old daughter, Amy, gone missing after having been left in the care of Eric's son Keith. A pivotal point in the narrative occurs when Eric is forced to examine what he knows and doesn't know about the people in his life and hence becomes fraught with the fear and realization that "I'm not sure you ever know anyone". The tale is steeped in tragedy, born from misunderstanding and desperation, to its final numbing conclusion.
This work by Cook represents one of the most thoroughly captivating psychological dramas in this genre. A tribute expressed by the award for the "best novel". It is a look at our human relationships and our capacity to examine those relationships within the confines of our experience. It examines how vulnerable we are to misinterpretations of motive and purpose and the alienation that can occur between, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and fathers and sons as a result. It also lets us speculate on the chaos of life to the extent that when we think we have achieved redemption for our mistakes, we can be struck yet again with a tragedy.
I highly recommend this novel.
Some analysis of reader's comments:
A good many readers were upset with various aspects of Cook's plot in the Novel `Red Leaves'. Having read the comments I offer some perspective on such views. The first thing I would point out is that one of Cook's objectives was to put the reader in exactly the same position as the character Eric Moore in the story; namely that he based what he thought he knew about things almost entirely upon his assumptions of what seemed to be true. The revelation for Eric Moore, of course, is that the impressions that formed what he thought were truths began to look less true and more like falsehoods. So, Cook takes the character of Keith Moore, for instance, and plants the seeds of who he is in such a way that the reader will draw impressions of him that invariably will be false. This is no better done than in the circumstances surrounding the abduction of Amy Giordano. Cook deliberately leaves out details to trap the reader. Some complained that the Giordano's did not "look in" on Amy when they returned home. However, that detail is never determined from the story. Vince Giordano asks if Keith left the house while he was there with Amy. This single question plants the seed that Amy was abducted before Keith left and the Giordano's returned home. However Vince also asks what time Keith arrived home! Vince's motivation for asking the questions is to eliminate the possibility of another suspect; ostensibly, someone else could have entered the house and observed Amy asleep there alone to return later and kidnap her or Keith could have done so before the Giordano's returned home. The ingenuity of Cook in posing Vince's questions, however, is to lure the reader to assume that if Keith left the house then Amy was abducted while he was gone and if Keith didn't leave the house, then Amy was abducted while he was still there and in any case Amy was gone before the Giordano's returned home - all assumptions false. The key was Vince's last question of when Keith arrived home. That question would have established that Amy was probably abducted after the Giordano's arrived home since it confirmed Keith as a suspect in Vince's mind because if Keith had returned home at around 10pm then Amy would have still been there and Keith could not have been a suspect.
In the case of who gave Keith Moore a ride home the night Amy is abducted, Eric Moore provides the answer. When Eric learns of the relationship between his son and Delmot Price, the town florist and one of Eric's customers and Eric learns that Keith spoke to Delmot that night, he reflects upon the car he observed turning around at the end of the driveway when Keith came home. Again, the seeds of doubt are planted when Eric asks detective Peak if Keith and Delmot were together that night and Peak asks why Eric thinks they were together. The answer of course is because Eric believes Delmot gave Keith a ride home only Eric can't tell Peak that since he withheld that knowledge to begin with.
Polly turns out to be Keith's girl friend. She is from the "other side of town" near the water tower and according to Keith has a hard life. Here again Cook artfully plants the seeds of false knowledge. The water tower is where Amy's pajamas are found and where Eric observes some untoward deviant behavior. Keith, however, never visits the water tower or it seems does Polly.
Finally, remember that the character of Keith, Eric's son is seen almost entirely through Eric's eyes which are tainted by his inability to see through the falsehood of things he thinks are truths. So we get a picture of Keith Moore that is skewed to the likeness that Eric begins to realize is generated from Eric's innate dislike for his son. As more is revealed to the reader about Keith, the more the reader comes to see the fallacy of Eric's plight in understanding himself and his son and that Keith is not at all what his father thinks he is. So the reader is given Eric's description of Keith that is riddled with false description.
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