Every new novel by Maksik is so different from his previous efforts that one's admiration grows for an author with such diverse skills and a determination not to repeat himself. Following novels which explored the life of the heart through teacher/student forbidden relationships in Paris and another set in Greece in Africa about a young Liberian woman's travails in a violent world, his new book, set around Seattle in the 1990s, is a carefully etched tale of mental illness and the darkness that seizes the human heart which closely follows the struggles of Joe March whose life shatters when he is gripped by bipolar disorder, followed by the terrible event of his mother killing a man. Delicately nuanced, this mini saga of an America that lays just behind the headlines is full of emotions, lacerating but true to life in that it is about a recognisable form of everyday life and digs up feelings we all have inevitably had at times. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
A troubled young man's bright future takes a strange turn when his mother commits murder in this ';riveting and disturbing novel' of 1990s Washington State (TheGuardian).A Guardian and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016. Joseph March, a twenty-one-year-old working-class kid from Seattle, is on top of the world. He has just graduated college and his limitless future beckons. But Joe's life suddenly implodes when he starts to suffer from the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Then, not long after, his mother kills a man she's never met with a hammer. Joe moves to White Pine, Washington, where his mother is serving time and his father has set up house. Followed there by his girlfriend, Tess Wolff, Joe's life falls into a daily rhythm of prison visits followed by beer and pizza at a local bar. Meanwhile, Joe's mother, Anne-Marie, is gradually becoming a local heroine. Many see her crime as a furious, exasperated act of righteous rebellion. Tess, too, has fallen under her spell. Spurred on by Anne-Marie's example, Tess enlists Joe in a secret, violent plan that will forever change their lives.Shelter in Place is a stylish novel about the hereditary nature of mental illness, the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligations of family, and the dramatic consequences of love.
