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Like The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Cammie McGovern’s breakout novel is at once a hypnotic thriller and an affecting portrait of people as real as our next-door neighbors. In Eye Contact, two children vanish in the woods behind their elementary school. Hours later, nine-year-old Adam is found alive, the sole witness to his playmate’s murder. But because Adam has autism, he is a silent witness. Only his mother, Cara, can help decode his behavior for the police. As the suspense ratchets, Eye Contact becomes a heart-stopping exploration of the bond between a mother and a very special child.
Praise
An airtight thriller that illuminates the exhausting, isolating realities of parenting special- needs children. (People)
An enticing drama. (Entertainment Weekly)
Deeply moving, actually gripping . . . Cammie McGovern . . . brings to the page an empathetic understanding of the lock that autism places on a motherÆs child. (New York Daily News)
Eye Contact is a page-turner. . . . But itÆs also . . . a nuanced, poignant exploration of how all of usùwith or without autismùstruggle to find our place in the world. (Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep)
So detailed and illuminating are McGovernÆs descriptions of Adam . . . that she offers, in essence, a primer on the nature of autism. Eye Contact is compelling by virtue of its spiky and in-transition characters. Psychologically rich and sensationally eventful. (Chicago Tribune)