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In Things Unseen
From acclaimed crime novelist Gar Anthony Haywood comes a riveting tale unlike any he's told before . . . Diane Edwards has spent the last eight months praying for a miracle after losing her son Adrian in a freak car accident at Seattle's Lakeridge Park. When she finds Adrian back in his bed one night--alive and well and oblivious to his death--it appears her prayers have been answered. But this isn't the kind of miracle Diane was expecting, because she soon learns Adrian is not the only one who's forgotten that fateful day in Lakeridge Park. The entire world has no memory of it, with the exception of Diane and three other people: Michael Edwards--Diane's estranged husband and Adrian's father. Laura Carrillo--Adrian's teacher, who loved him almost as much as his parents did. Milton Weisman--The agnostic, sixty-eight-year-old widower and alcoholic who lost control of the car that killed Adrian in Lakeridge Park. Over the next six days, these four people must struggle to understand what Adrian's return to the living means, and why God Himself would choose them, and them alone, to play witness to it. In the end, all will learn that God's mercy knows no limits--but its permanence comes at a price.
- GenresFiction
270 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2020
5 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Gar Anthony Haywood
40 books70 followersaka Ray Shannon.
Gar Anthony Harwood also writes as Ray Shannon. He has won the Shamus and Anthony Award for his mystery fiction. He writes stand-alone novels and short-stories as well as series. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, written scripts for television drama series (e.g. New York Undercover and the District) and Movies of the Week for ABC. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America.
Gar Anthony Harwood also writes as Ray Shannon. He has won the Shamus and Anthony Award for his mystery fiction. He writes stand-alone novels and short-stories as well as series. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, written scripts for television drama series (e.g. New York Undercover and the District) and Movies of the Week for ABC. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 1, 2021
Book Review: In Things Unseen by Gar Anthony Haywood
After you’ve closed the covers on a book and feel it two days later, you’ve been privy to something special. If you’re still thinking about it by the third day, you’ve been exposed to compelling questions. And when you talk about it ceaselessly with friends, you’ve been seriously privileged.
In Things Unseen by Gar Anthony Haywood is such a book. But don’t expect his usual award-winning crime output, think instead of a work of literature with both horizontal and vertical layers. The horizontal layers are story stuff—mystery, conflict, and stakes; the vertical tiers are epistemology (how do we know what we know?), the consequences of faith or lack thereof, and what to make of the unknowable. However, it is not a religious screed or polemic. Instead, it frames its questions and issues within, and as a byproduct of an engrossing story.
The book’s premise has a ghost-story vibe but with deeper, delicious complexity. A child is killed in an accident and suddenly reappears as if nothing happened, and only four people remember his death from the accident. All traces of it—news coverage, physical features of the place it occurred, his funeral, his grave, his surroundings, and everyone who knew him have no idea the accident ever occurred, as if time was backspaced and memories erased, allowing the accident and earthly changes following it to be re-written or continued as if never occurred.
The book plunges immediately into the story within the first few pages when the boy, Adrian, comes into his normal classroom and causes his teacher to act out in panic, questioning her own reality. She is one of the four who knew about his death, yet here he is. The others are his parents and the man who lost control of his car that killed the boy.
The mother was the first to recognize the miracle, and fears anything less than full-throated acceptance may be tantamount to questioning God’s grace and thereby undo it. Gradually the father also accepts it, and later, the driver of the injurious car. However, the teacher, whose hysterical response upon seeing Adrian in the classroom caused her suspension and probable end of her career, does not cotton to miracles. She is an atheist and has concluded a fraud by the parents is afoot. The story proceeds energetically as the parties contend with their secret knowledge and consequences of public perception if discovered, while a reporter and the teacher attempt to uncover the nature of what really happened, the revised history, and apparently stunning resurrection.
The prose is clean with just enough writerly flourishes to cue the reader he/she’s reading a skilled novelist versus a newspaper account. E.g., “she smiled a small flag of surrender,” “the bitter aftertaste of failure,” “mining the business of others for her own entertainment,“ etc. Changing points of view among characters are deftly handled. I liked the short chapters. Sub-plots, stakes, suspense, and mystery reveal a sure-handed author. Those features alone will grip the reader, yet the book offers so much more.
The deeper layers add a mélange of thought to the entertaining plot: Is there such a thing as a god? If so, how does God express his will? Given that one may believe so, does God intervene in human affairs? Sometimes? Never? How? What is grace? Do miracles exist, or only inexplicability, the answers to which may someday be discovered but meanwhile no more mysterious than some inchoate “god.”
There were a few lapses, almost quibbles; nor do they detract from the story or intellectual challenges between the lines: A dialogue between the father and a co-worker was uncharacteristically a little tell-y, albeit only one page; a typo of antenna vs. antennas or antennae; I would have liked the rabbi, a minor character introduced late in the book, to have been foreshadowed.
“The mighty novel” is called that in part because of the thought it requires, by which I mean that plot, sub-plots, characterizations, and other elements must be thoroughly thought through for plausibility that makes sense, not lead to dead-ends, and without raising more questions than they resolve. This author clearly has given deep thought to thorny, philosophical issues, as well as the basis on which they could be challenged. I liken it to a lawyer cross-examiner who must know in advance what the witness will say, where assertions might be inconsistent and how to counter them, and how to frame the questions to result in suitable answers. In Things Unseen is, indeed, rendered in such masterly fashion.
To conclude, Gar Anthony Haywood’s In Things Unseen is a well-written, wonderful, and tense drama with enough food for thought to keep the reader’s jaws chewing long after the covers are closed. It has already led to spirited discussions between me and friends. This book is why book clubs exist. It is a must. It would also make a marvelous movie.
Five stars to author Gar Anthony Haywood.
Lanny Larcinese
After you’ve closed the covers on a book and feel it two days later, you’ve been privy to something special. If you’re still thinking about it by the third day, you’ve been exposed to compelling questions. And when you talk about it ceaselessly with friends, you’ve been seriously privileged.
In Things Unseen by Gar Anthony Haywood is such a book. But don’t expect his usual award-winning crime output, think instead of a work of literature with both horizontal and vertical layers. The horizontal layers are story stuff—mystery, conflict, and stakes; the vertical tiers are epistemology (how do we know what we know?), the consequences of faith or lack thereof, and what to make of the unknowable. However, it is not a religious screed or polemic. Instead, it frames its questions and issues within, and as a byproduct of an engrossing story.
The book’s premise has a ghost-story vibe but with deeper, delicious complexity. A child is killed in an accident and suddenly reappears as if nothing happened, and only four people remember his death from the accident. All traces of it—news coverage, physical features of the place it occurred, his funeral, his grave, his surroundings, and everyone who knew him have no idea the accident ever occurred, as if time was backspaced and memories erased, allowing the accident and earthly changes following it to be re-written or continued as if never occurred.
The book plunges immediately into the story within the first few pages when the boy, Adrian, comes into his normal classroom and causes his teacher to act out in panic, questioning her own reality. She is one of the four who knew about his death, yet here he is. The others are his parents and the man who lost control of his car that killed the boy.
The mother was the first to recognize the miracle, and fears anything less than full-throated acceptance may be tantamount to questioning God’s grace and thereby undo it. Gradually the father also accepts it, and later, the driver of the injurious car. However, the teacher, whose hysterical response upon seeing Adrian in the classroom caused her suspension and probable end of her career, does not cotton to miracles. She is an atheist and has concluded a fraud by the parents is afoot. The story proceeds energetically as the parties contend with their secret knowledge and consequences of public perception if discovered, while a reporter and the teacher attempt to uncover the nature of what really happened, the revised history, and apparently stunning resurrection.
The prose is clean with just enough writerly flourishes to cue the reader he/she’s reading a skilled novelist versus a newspaper account. E.g., “she smiled a small flag of surrender,” “the bitter aftertaste of failure,” “mining the business of others for her own entertainment,“ etc. Changing points of view among characters are deftly handled. I liked the short chapters. Sub-plots, stakes, suspense, and mystery reveal a sure-handed author. Those features alone will grip the reader, yet the book offers so much more.
The deeper layers add a mélange of thought to the entertaining plot: Is there such a thing as a god? If so, how does God express his will? Given that one may believe so, does God intervene in human affairs? Sometimes? Never? How? What is grace? Do miracles exist, or only inexplicability, the answers to which may someday be discovered but meanwhile no more mysterious than some inchoate “god.”
There were a few lapses, almost quibbles; nor do they detract from the story or intellectual challenges between the lines: A dialogue between the father and a co-worker was uncharacteristically a little tell-y, albeit only one page; a typo of antenna vs. antennas or antennae; I would have liked the rabbi, a minor character introduced late in the book, to have been foreshadowed.
“The mighty novel” is called that in part because of the thought it requires, by which I mean that plot, sub-plots, characterizations, and other elements must be thoroughly thought through for plausibility that makes sense, not lead to dead-ends, and without raising more questions than they resolve. This author clearly has given deep thought to thorny, philosophical issues, as well as the basis on which they could be challenged. I liken it to a lawyer cross-examiner who must know in advance what the witness will say, where assertions might be inconsistent and how to counter them, and how to frame the questions to result in suitable answers. In Things Unseen is, indeed, rendered in such masterly fashion.
To conclude, Gar Anthony Haywood’s In Things Unseen is a well-written, wonderful, and tense drama with enough food for thought to keep the reader’s jaws chewing long after the covers are closed. It has already led to spirited discussions between me and friends. This book is why book clubs exist. It is a must. It would also make a marvelous movie.
Five stars to author Gar Anthony Haywood.
Lanny Larcinese
May 15, 2021
In Things Unseen is a novel about a dead child who comes alive once again. It's not just a story about God, faith or even miracles. It's also a story about us and the mysteriously complicated journeys we take as both believers and non-believers. Gar Anthony Haywood injects no judgments, nor implies any sly political-religious agendas. He beautifully constructs gut-wrenching portrayals of humans who are forced to stop and think. Period. If, at the end of reading this book, you are not moved; well, my friend, I say to you, check your pulse to see if you are truly alive. In Things Unseen is indeed a unique Masterpiece!
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July 9, 2022A surprising story from an excellent mystery writer— a blend of Twilight Zone and metaphysics, as a dead child returns (yes, literally) to life through his mother’s prayers. Haywood has a gift for writing female characters— unusual and welcome. Quite gripping.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews