Eye Contact

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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)