"Klimasewiski brings the final curtain down with a satisfyingly wicked twist....A remarkable debut."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
Cyrus Collingwood, nineteen, suspects he may be a genius without a calling. He is a year-round resident of East Sooke, Vancouver Island, and has a natural resentment for the summer cottagers who descend on its rocky beaches. When two vacationing American couples arrive - old friends with a complicated history - they become his obsession. Greg and Nicholas are academics with a friendship more competitive than collegial; Samina and Laurel are old roommates who have grown apart and developed an intricate jealousy. Cyrus spies on the cottagers through their windows, then begins to insinuate himself into their lives. When one of the cottagers goes missing, no one will look at the others the same way again.
Combining the eerie suspense of Patricia Highsmith and the literary fortitude of Ian McEwan, The Cottagers is about the discrepancy between the lives we live and the versions of those lives that trail behind us.
"Klimasewiski brings the final curtain down with a satisfyingly wicked twist....A remarkable debut."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
Cyrus Collingwood, nineteen, suspects he may be a genius without a calling. He is a year-round resident of East Sooke, Vancouver Island, and has a natural resentment for the summer cottagers who descend on its rocky beaches. When two vacationing American couples arrive - old friends with a complicated history - they become his obsession. Greg and Nicholas are academics with a friendship more competitive than collegial; Samina and Laurel are old roommates who have grown apart and developed an intricate jealousy. Cyrus spies on the cottagers through their windows, then begins to insinuate himself into their lives. When one of the cottagers goes missing, no one will look at the others the same way again.
Combining the eerie suspense of Patricia Highsmith and the literary fortitude of Ian McEwan, The Cottagers is about the discrepancy between the lives we live and the versions of those lives that trail behind us.