Spotlight: The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene

When a publicist tells me that a book is one of their favorites that they've ever worked on, I pay attention. People in the book world have a lot of stories pass through their fingers, so it's a rare one that makes a lasting impression. So based on that recommendation, I thought I would share the book with you, even though it's adult literary fiction, rather than YA, because maybe you might like to take note of high praise like that, too!
If you want to get a feel for the book, you can read an excerpt here. Otherwise, allow me to present:

The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene

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Contemporary Fiction, 288 pages

Thomas Dunne Books (February 25, 2014)

An immensely talented writer whose work has been described as “incandescent” (Kirkus) and “poetic” (Booklist), Thomas Christopher Greene pens a haunting and deeply affecting portrait of one couple at their best and worst.

Inspired by a personal loss, Greene explores the way that tragedy and time assail one man’s memories of his life and loves. Like his father before him, Arthur Winthrop is the Headmaster of Vermont’s elite Lancaster School. It is the place he feels has given him his life, but is also the site of his undoing as events spiral out of his control. Found wandering naked in Central Park, he begins to tell his story to the police, but his memories collide into one another, and the true nature of things, a narrative of love, of marriage, of family and of a tragedy Arthur does not know how to address emerges. Luminous and atmospheric, bringing to life the tight-knit enclave of a quintessential New England boarding school, the novel is part mystery, part love story and an exploration of the ties of place and family. Beautifully written and compulsively readable, The Headmaster’s Wife stands as a moving elegy to the power of love as an antidote to grief.
"A truly remarkable novel, I read the second half of The Headmaster’s Wife with my mouth open, my jaw having dropped at the end of the first half. Thomas Christopher Greene knows how to hook a reader and land him." --Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls