The Done Thing
A Book Club Recommendation!
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3.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Olive Kitteridge and The Woman Upstairs, this “deeply human and morally saturated novel” (Library Journal, starred review) explores how a terrible crime changed one woman’s life forever.
Lida Stearl prides herself on always do the right thing—it has served her well throughout her life as she built a career as an orthodontist, maintained a happy marriage, and raised her young niece after the murder of her sister by her brother-in-law, Clarence Lusk. But now that she’s widowed, retired, and an empty nester, the small perfections of her orderly life aren’t enough to stop her from feeling adrift.
Then a well-intentioned birthday gift leads her to discover that Clarence, on death row for his crime, is seeking pen pals from the outside as he prepares for his final appeal. For the first time in her life, Lida crosses a line—she begins to write him, pretending to be a naïve, flirtatious twenty-three year old, in an effort to seek retribution. As letters pass steadily between Lida and Clarence, her obsession with revenge unfolds and she begins to question her morality.
The Done Thing is an utterly memorable and engrossing exploration of forgiveness, loyalty, and justice, and how a tragic event can suddenly change a life’s course.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her second novel, Manaster (You Could Be Home by Now) continues to grapple with the nature of family and tragedy. Lida Stearl's life was changed forever when her sister, Barbra, was murdered by Barbra's husband, Clarence Lusk, and Lida stepped up to raise Barbra and Clarence's young daughter. With the girl fully grown, Lida begins to dwell on her sister's murder. Prompted by boredom and a looming court date, she begins to write to Clarence, pretending to be a young woman, in an effort to gain insight into the man she has hated for so long. Lida's relationship with her former brother-in-law becomes increasingly intimate as Clarence opens up to her epistolary persona. As the deception continues, Lida is forced to face the foundations for her hate and question how families can forgive one another. Telling the story through an often unlikable narrator whose visceral pain makes her sympathetic even at her cruelest, Manaster creates a difficult situation with no clear solution. In this engrossing story about the effects that vengeance can have on love, Manaster refuses to take the happy, easy way out, instead leaving her strikingly relatable characters with just enough room to breathe.
