Bound

Suspicious men are everywhere in Bound, Antonya Nelson's first novel in ten years. There's Oliver, the aging narcissist and philanderer; Randall, the inscrutable, PTSD-suffering Iraq war veteran; and looming in the headlines and imaginations of all of Nelson's characters, a legendary serial killer, recently resurfaced and publically threatening to pick up where he left off. However, the real story of Bound is of its three singular women: Catherine, long-suffering wife of Oliver; her long-lost teenage friend from the wrong side of the tracks, Misty; and Misty's only daughter, Cattie. Misty's death in the book's beautifully rendered opening pages activates Catherine and Oliver's automatic legal guardianship of Cattie, much to everyone's shock. As Catherine and Cattie unknowingly work their way toward each other in separate cross-country trips, Nelson fills in the back-story on her characters—their relationships with one another and with the difficult-at-best men in their lives. In this way, Bound examines the powerful pull of family, the value of loyalty, and the surprisingly durable bonds of friendship. Told in nuanced prose, Bound has all the suspense of a mystery novel balanced by the soulful characterizations and piercing psychological insights of a literary work.