The Good Life

Novelist and short-story author Thurm (Today Is Not Your Day) introduces Stacy and Roger, a wealthy couple living with their two children on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. From the outside, their life looks perfect: Roger has a well-paying job; Stacy is content as a stay-at-home mom; and their beautiful, talented children are enrolled in private school and model part-time. Yet as the book opens, Roger buys a handgun. Over the course of the novel, Thurm juxtaposes scenes from past and present, contrasting the charmed and sweet beginning of Stacy and Roger's relationship and marriage to its sad and ultimately devastating end. When Roger's work falters and his sister dies of cancer, he begins a downward spiral that eventually takes his whole family—and their picture-perfect life together—down with him. Thurm creates memorable and vividly realistic scenes; however, her subject matter is very grim, and by the end many readers will be happy to reach for something lighter.