WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GIRL LEFT BEHIND?

A masked man with a gun enters a sandwich shop in broad daylight, and Meredith Oliver suddenly finds herself ordered to the filthy floor, where she cowers face to face with her nemesis, Lisa Bellow, the most popular girl in her eighth grade class. The minutes tick inexorably by, and Meredith lurches between comforting the sobbing Lisa and imagining her own impending death. Then the man orders Lisa Bellow to stand and come with him, leaving Meredith behind.

After Lisa’s abduction, Meredith spends most days in her room. As the community stages vigils and searches, Claire, Meredith’s mother, is torn between relief that her daughter is alive and helplessness over her inability to protect or even comfort her child. Her daughter is here, but not. How can life ever move forward again?

The Fall of Lisa Bellow is edgy and original, a hair-raising exploration of the ripple effects of an unthinkable crime, for readers who enjoyed Everything I Never Told You and Room.

Praise for Susan Perabo's short stories:

‘Explores the very human question - in surprising and original ways - of what it really means to be afraid’ Elizabeth Strout, bestselling author of My Name is LucyBarton on The Broken Places

‘Darkly beautiful stories about love and loss and every gradation between. Each one is suffused with astonishing wit and tenderness. Well worth the wait!’ Jenny Offill, New York Times bestselling author of Dept. of Speculation on Who I Was Supposed to Be

‘There's only one way to read Susan Perabo, and that's breathlessly. Each story in Who I Was Supposed to Be crackles with narrative electricity, and every one made me want to stand and cheer’ Richard Russo