Await Your Reply: A Novel

by Dan Chaon

Ebook, 2009

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

All Topics

General Fiction

Fiction

Collection

Recommended Books

Publication

Ballantine Books (2009), Edition: 1st, 337 pages

Description

The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways-and with unexpected consequences-in acclaimed author Dan Chaon's gripping, brilliantly written new novel.Longing to get on with his life, Miles Cheshire nevertheless can't stop searching for his troubled twin brother, Hayden, who has been missing for ten years. Hayden has covered his tracks skillfully, moving stealthily from place to place, managing along the way to hold down various jobs and seem, to the people he meets, entirely normal. But some version of the truth is always concealed.A few days after graduating from high school, Lucy Lattimore sneaks away from the small town of Pompey, Ohio, with her charismatic former history teacher. They arrive in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, at a long-deserted motel next to a dried-up reservoir, to figure out the next move on their path to a new life. But soon Lucy begins to feel quietly uneasy.My whole life is a lie, thinks Ryan Schuyler, who has recently learned some shocking news. In response, he walks off the Northwestern University campus, hops on a bus, and breaks loose from his existence, which suddenly seems abstract and tenuous. Presumed dead, Ryan decides to remake himself-through unconventional and precarious means.Await Your Reply is a literary masterwork with the momentum of a thriller, an unforgettable novel in which pasts are invented and reinvented and the future is both seductively uncharted and perilously unmoored.… (more)

Media reviews

Pop Damage

It’s hard to talk about Await Your Reply at length without giving too much away. In fact, the less you know about the novel going in, the better. Chaon does a great job of shifting the novel’s chronology around to trickle the plotlines out as he sees fit. It’s a gimmick that could have been

hackneyed, but Chaon makes it work here. He seems more interested in filling in the lives of his characters than constructing some complex whodunit — and the result is a more nuanced, creepy affair than sensory jarring thriller.

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— 3 more

People

[A] dark, deliciously disturbing literary thriller... Await Your Reply is a story that unfolds with chilling precision. You'll be spellbound from start to finish.

The Washington Post

You need to step into this work of psychological suspense completely unprepared for what lurks in here. If somebody starts telling you what they liked best, put your fingers in your ears and sing: "La, la, la, la!" But you can trust me -- which is just what all the manipulative creeps in this novel

say.

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The New York Times

Chaon is a dark, provocative writer, and “Await Your Reply” is a dark, provocative book; in bringing its three strands together, Chaon has fashioned a braid out of barbed wire.

User reviews

LibraryThing member phebj

This is a well-written thriller about identity and cyber-crime whose structure reminded me of a kaleidoscope where all the pieces slowly click into focus. Actually, there are some things that are never really clear even at the end (such as “was that person’s death really accidental?”)--but

that just contributes to the creepiness of the book.

The story is told from the point of view of three different characters who are unhappy with their lives and open to the idea of changing identities but naive about the kind of people this brings them into contact with. It’s hard to say much about the plot without giving things away but I thought the author did a good job of slowly revealing clues and keeping the story moving along.

The real value of the book to me though was that, in addition to telling a good story, the author raises a number of questions about identity in general. Some of the things this book made me think about were (1) how easy it is to be someone else on the internet, (2) the extensive and murky world of cyber criminals and (3) the issue of even wanting to change your identity in the first place. It made me realize I never even think about this. (And the last time I even remotely did was before going to college when I briefly considered switching to using my middle name instead of my first.)

In my paperback version of the book, there’s an interview with the author. One of his comments struck me: “I’ve been reading a lot about the problem of memory, and I’m fascinated by the work of researchers like Elizabeth Loftus, which suggests that memory and our sense of our own life stories are more fictional than we’d like to believe.”

Favorite passage: “I never wanted to get to a point in my life where I knew what was going to happen next. . . . I can’t understand how people can settle for having just one life. I remember we were in English class and we were talking about that poem by--that one guy. David Frost. ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood--’ You know this poem, right? ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth--’ I loved that poem. But I remember thinking to myself: Why? How come you can’t travel both? That seemed really unfair to me.” (I sometimes think about the path not taken but never about taking both!)

Bottom line: Entertaining story with a lot of food for thought. Recommended--4 stars.

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24 more

LibraryThing member arubabookwoman

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

First sentence: "'We are on our way to the hospital,' Ryan's Father says. 'Listen to me, Son. You are not going to bleed to death.'"

Abruptly we leave Ryan to be introduced to Lucy, who skips town in the middle of the night a couple of days after her high school

graduation, with George, her former high school history teacher, as they arrive at the Lighthouse Motel in the middle of the Great Plains.

Cut to Mike, nearing the Arctic Circle on his so-far futile search for his schizophrenic (or not) brother, who has been missing for years.

Now--tell me--would you be able to stop reading a book after this beginning? I couldn't.

This book is highly readable, its characters, broadly varied, each beautifully depicted. The plot is compelling, and has the feel of a psychological thriller, although it is literary fiction. As the novel explores the themes of identity, and what is real and what is imaginary, its three story lines inexorably converge to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion, one which will make you want to start the book all over again.

Highly recommended.

4 stars

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LibraryThing member msf59

Identity crisis? This new novel has identity issues in spades. There are three different story-lines and as these disjointed characters wander along these pages searching for themselves, they eventually stumble and blend into one another. Complex and challenging? Yes, but the narrative flows

smoothly and as the puzzle pieces fall into place,you will find your rewards. A heady mix of Bergman's Persona with Pulp Fiction's time-bending structure. Highly recommended!

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LibraryThing member bragan

This novel tells three stories in alternating chapters, each of which begins with a car ride: A young man, bleeding badly, is being rushed to a hospital through the rural woods of Michigan. A nineteen-year-old girl, having just recently graduated high school, is running off to Nebraska with her

former high school history teacher. And another man is driving through Canada in search of his long-missing twin brother, who might or might be not schizophrenic. At first, none of these stories appear to have much of anything to do with each other, but it becomes more and more apparent as the novel goes on that they are intimately tied together...

I enjoyed this a lot. It's got a corker of an opening, and it just keeps going from there, with the intriguing hints of connection between these three very different stories making for a puzzle whose answers creep up on you gradually in an interesting and satisfying way. It's also very well-written, with vivid characters and pages that just seem to fly by. If it weren't for annoying little things like sleep and work, I think I could easily have finished this in one sitting.

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LibraryThing member ellenflorman

This book was a roller coaster ride from start to finish and I could not put it down. Three seeming separate stories,each compelling in its own right begin to weave together in a most unexpected way. One of the most beautifully choreographed books I have ever read. Definitely highy recommended!

LibraryThing member bnbooklady

This quietly creepy thriller is ostensibly about identity theft, but it’s really about the meaning and flexibility of identity, the search for connection, and the desire to be known…or to become entirely unknown.

In three alternative narrative lines, Chaon chronicles a young man’s search for

his missing—potentially schizophrenic—twin brother, a teenage girl’s attempt to begin a new life by running away with her history teacher (who drives a Maserati, though no one knows how he manages to afford it), and a college student who receives surprising news about his true identity and simply walks out of his life at Northwestern University, allowing everyone to believe he is dead.

Await Your Reply is engaging from the very first page and moves along at a steady clip. More intellectual than action-packed, this is a psychological thriller that will force even the most careful readers to wonder whether they caught all the details. Chaon plays it close to the vest, and the reward for paying close attention is great.

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LibraryThing member Jenners26

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

A man searches fruitlessly for his twin brother, whose been missing for 10 years. A new high school graduate embarks on an adventure with her former history teacher and ends up in an abandoned motel in the middle of Nebraska. A young college student receives shocking news and ends

up being mistakenly pronounced dead … so he decides to just go with it. The fates of these three people run parallel throughout the book before crashing together in unexpected ways.

MY THOUGHTS

Reading this book is akin to throwing the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the air and having it assemble itself before landing, with all the pieces fitting neatly together. It was a nifty little trick that Chaon pulled off in this book, and I was impressed. I will admit that I struggled while reading to figure out what the heck was going on … how exactly did these three seemingly unrelated stories fit together? Chaon keeps the puzzle pieces up in the air for most of the book, but when it all starts fitting together, there is an “aaaah” moment that made it a fun and satisfying reading experience. If you enjoy intricately plotted stories that have sinister and dark undertones, this is the book for you!

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LibraryThing member PenniH

Dan Channon’s book “Await Your Reply” had a great start and ending and characters that were out of the ordinary. I tremendously enjoyed this book even though this is not my favorite book format; each chapter changes story lines and characters until the end where it all comes together. I find

it jarring to be taken out of the story and have to pick back up from a couple of chapters ago. And invariably I become more vested in one story line and have to force myself to not skip chapters to follow the line I like the best.
Still this story appeals to the part of yourself that sometimes just wants to leave your life behind and start over. It’s intriguing to think that it is possible to just step over that invisible line of how we represent ourselves, and that our idea of self can so easily be swept away. If you have the guts, it can appear to have few consequences and the book presents interesting views of both the positive and negative. It can be fun to fantasize about just disappearing from all of the issues and routine, but few have thought through the consequences like the author.
The arrival at the Lighthouse motel, for instance, really conveyed how depressing the reality of an adventure can be from the romanticized ideas in your mind. The struggle as the reality of the situation settles over you and you begin to understand how unrealistic your expectations have been.
In the end all of the story lines are tied up, and I appreciated the complexity, but had to go back and get certain characters straight so that it made sense. I did not anticipating the ending which made it all the more fun. This book definitely stood out for me, I read a lot of books but I only keep the ones I enjoy the most. “Await Your Reply” has met that test. I highly recommend.

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LibraryThing member hemlokgang

A Book Club selection......I could not put this book down. I found the plot, characters and structure to work really well together. The primary theme of this book was identity.....how it is gained, how it is lost, how it can change. Another thread was the lack of authenticity in an age of high

tech. Really gripping, psychological thriller!

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LibraryThing member SugarCreekRanch

Await Your Reply is a complex novel. Not light beach reading -- you'll want to pay close attention. It contains three different subplots: a man searching for his mentally unstable twin brother, a young woman running away with her former teacher, and a young man joining forces with a long-lost

relatives. Each story is interesting on its own, with very rich characters and wonderful prose. But the best part is how the common threads come together to form an intricate overall story by the end.

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LibraryThing member ethel55

Wow. This was a well-thought out, tightly written story. The characters of Miles, Lucy and Ryan are interesting, even though they are at differing points in their lives. All three storylines are smoothly presented and when eventual links appeared, I felt rewarded for my diligent reading.

LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

The story starts with three seemingly unconnected narratives. First, that of Ryan, who in the opening scene is being rushed to the hospital with his detached hand. Then also Lucy, recent high school grad running away with her history teacher. Finally, there's Miles, searching for his missing twin

brother. What propels you through the book is wanting to find out how these three connect up. I had some guesses, some right, but didn't get quite how all they all fitted till the end--the author says it was the same for him, that he wrote it with those first scenes and characters in mind, then wrote them trying to figure out how they connect--maybe that helped in keeping the sense of mystery, although in the end it does fit so nicely with such a firm click there's a sense of inevitability.

Besides the mystery, the theme of identity keeps recurring in this novel in interesting ways as both the key to the mystery but in a way that also has you turning in your mind what makes up your own identity. Although Lucy and Ryan have less than nice aspects to their characters, I did come to care for them (and Miles) and that was another source of suspense as you watch them get deeper into what you worry cannot end well. The prose is clean and the book sucked me in. One of those novels you better pick up when you can clear some hours to spend--because you won't want to put it down.

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LibraryThing member ForeignCircus

This novel is told as three interwoven stories whose connections only become clear toward the very end of the book. It is a tribute to Chaon's abilities as a writer that these stories do mesh so unexpectedly well and that the reader is carried along far enough to see the connections. This is a

sparse and dismal tale of self-definition and identity that sparks questions about who any of us really are inside our own minds and to the people around us.

Miles is haunted by the twin who disappeared, but never completely, whose forceful and potentially false memories of their shared childhood continue to keep Miles separated from reality and questioning his own existence. Ryan is haunted by his memories of his own failures and what he sees as his betrayal by his parents; his active attempt to remove himself from the world has far-reaching consequences. Orphaned Lucy is haunted by the life she fears she'll never have, the choices she won't have the opportunity to make; though her decision to runaway is brought on by a desire to remake herself, she finds it more difficult than expected to abandon her own knowledge of who she truly is.

This masterful work was a surprisingly quick read and yet raised questions that are still floating unanswered in my mind. Highly recommended- this book will stay with you.

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LibraryThing member TrishNYC

Whoa, I really enjoyed this book. I started reading it this morning in between reading other books but all the other books got put aside as I had to see where this was going.

There are three different story lines going on that seemingly have absolutely nothing to do with each other. One story

starts off with a young man, Ryan, whose father assures him that he will not bleed to death as they rush to the emergency room with his severed arm in a styrofoam ice cooler. We later learn more about Ryan, he is Northwestern student who is failing all his classes and is undergoing an identity crisis of sorts as he discovers that the people he grew up with as his parents are actually his adoptive parents. Story number two is of Miles Cheshire who has spent most of his adult life looking for his brother Hayden who had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic when they were teens. But is he really? And finally we have the story if Lucy Lattimore who runs off after her high school graduation with her teacher George Orson.

All these stories are seemingly removed and unconnected and I kept wondering what they had to do with each other. Each story is interesting on its on and that draws you in and keeps your reading.

One of the most intelligent devices that the author employs is the fact that he never tells you the chronology of each story. You are never sure if the stories are taking place simultaneously, weeks/months apart or a few years apart. This makes for a very interesting story telling device as you try to find the connection between the characters. The author is also excellent in his descriptiveness. As the various characters make their way through America and beyond, you are caught up in their worlds and imagine what it must look like. From the decaying Cleveland suburbs, to the Bates motel like inn and accompanying house in Nebraska to the hustle and bustle of a busy African city, you find yourself lost in these worlds and their presence adds to a certain creepiness that permeates the whole story.

I think that one of the most surprising things about this book is that despite the fact that there are mysterious and sinister events happening in this book, the book turns out to be more than just a thriller. At the center of these converging stories is the search for identity and the pursuit to reinvent oneself. As characters interact and intersect it becomes clear that many times you cannot escape yourself no matter how long it takes.

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LibraryThing member lisapeet

I thought this was terrific -- compelling and well-written, with plenty to mull over afterward. The book is just saturated with loss, not just death but also the lateral, losing-yourself kind -- it's dark, but the writing is lush and the storyline smart and the whole thing worked just right. This

is going on my list of fall recs for sure.

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LibraryThing member MlleEhreen

This novel switches between three stories that converge for a surprise ending.

Story #1: Miles Cheshire is searching for his twin brother, Hayden. It's a fruitless search, motivated by a combination of love and pity. Hayden is crazy - a schizophreniac. As a child, he was tormented by horrible

nightmares that eventually crept into his waking existence. By the time he was a teenager, Hayden's sense of reality was terribly corrupted - he couldn't tell the difference between events as they happened and as he imagined them, on a personal and global level. Finally, Hayden was put in a mental institution - but he escaped, and Miles hasn't seen his brother since then, ten years earlier. Hayden sends Miles clues as to his whereabouts, and Miles always tries to use those clues to locate Hayden. But before he can track his brother down, Hayden slips out of reach. In AWAIT YOUR REPLY, Miles is driving north through Canada to the Arctic Circle. He knows that he's on another wild goose chase, that he probably won't find his brother, but he can't help but try.

Story #2: Ryan is failing out of college when he gets a phone call from his uncle Jay, who has some surprising news: Ryan isn't the biological child of his parents, as he'd always assumed. Jay says he is Ryan's real father, explaining that he got his girlfriend pregnant as a teenager but the girlfriend didn't want an abortion and wasn't ready to be a parent. Ryan ended up being raised by Jay's sister, who couldn't have children of her own. Jay thinks it's his duty to let Ryan know the truth, and Ryan, already at a crisis point, makes a radical decision: he drops out of college and moves to Michigan with Jay. Once in Michigan, he's quickly wrapped up in Jay's illegal money-making scheme, identity theft. When we meet Ryan, he's been with his father long enough for things to go terribly wrong - and Jay leaves Ryan to take the fall.

Story #3: Lucy is a brilliant senior in high school whose life is crumbling around her - her parents have died in a car crash, she's living with her older sister who can barely make ends meet for the two of them, and overconfidence leads her to apply to only three colleges: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. When she's rejected from all three, Lucy doesn't know what to do - but her high school history teacher, George Orson, has an idea. He asks her to run away with him, he promises her a life of wealth and leisure, and Lucy decides it's the best option she has. But instead of international travel and luxury, Lucy finds herself living in a creepy, abandoned hotel with an increasingly distant George Orson. He assures her a bright future is just around the corner, but Lucy is increasingly aware that she's involving herself in a very, very bad situation.

AWAIT YOUR REPLY is a very clever novel, but it's also psychologically astute. The writing is good, the characters vivid and real. I was very surprised by the final reveal, but at the same time it seemed like it should have been obvious all along - I think this is a sign of a truly well crafted surprise ending. Worth the read.

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LibraryThing member karenthecroccy

I’m a sucker for character driven novels. I also love stories that intersect in surprising ways. It was obvious that I was going to enjoy this book from reading a review in Entertainment Weekly (no joke!). The story is based on three different story lines happening at different times, though you

don’t know that until the final third of the book. There are three main characters: Miles Cheshire, who is looking for his schizophrenic brother Hayden; there’s Lucy Lattimore, who has run off with her charismatic high school teacher George Orson; then there’s Ryan Schuyler who discovers that his parents aren’t really his parents but his aunt and her husband. He meets his long lost father, Jay Kozekek. A lot of this novel interesects with the theme of self identity, but it also intersects in surprising ways. Rather than spoil it for you, just go ahead and read it. The first 2/3 is full of great characters and the final 1/3 connects those characters. A note about the pacing of the novel: the book isn’t particularly plot driven for the first 2/3. When do you do reach the final 1/3, it takes on a phrenetic pace. I particularly enjoyed the set up and the outcome of this book! Must read more Dan Chaon …

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LibraryThing member TheWordJar

Who are you? Is your identity static, defined only by your past experiences? Or is it dynamic, able to be created, altered, or eliminated as you move along in life? Await Your Reply, the new novel by National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon, raises questions about and suggests implications of modern

identity while weaving together the story of three characters trying to figure out their own identities.

Await Your Reply follows three ordinary characters in less than ordinary circumstances. Ryan, a college sophomore, finds out he is adopted and disappears from his crumbling life to enter the world of identity theft. Lucy decides to leave her sleepy hometown, swept away by her charming high school teacher who promises her adventure and fortune, only to end up in a motel in Nebraska. Miles has given up living his own life, and possibly his hold on his sanity, in a desperate search to find his long-lost, possibly schizophrenic, twin brother.

Chaon uses the mundane details of the characters’ lives—Ryan sitting in a rental car office; Lucy watching movies in the motel; Miles at his job in a novelty shop—to cultivate the core essence of the novel. These meaningless details show that “most people . . . [have] identities that [are] so shallow that you could easily manage a hundred of them at once.” A person’s identity is so often defined by one’s job, hobby, or favorite movie—superficial attributes that can easily be culled from an Internet search—that anyone with a little determination could actually maintain several separate and disparate identities at the same time. It’s the ramifications of these multiple identities that propel the story to its satisfying conclusion.

As is often the case in real life, the small details in Await Your Reply can easily be overlooked by the reader as insignificant. It is not until the end that the reader is able to put everything together and realize what’s been happening the whole time. Await Your Reply is a novel that begs to be reread as soon as the reader finishes the final page.

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LibraryThing member audryh

Three separate lives interconnect on the final page of this strange novel about a missing person, identities, what makes a person who they really are, reinventing oneself. Miles and Hayden Cheshire, twins; Lucy Laattimore and her history teacher, George, Ryan Schuyler and father Jay. Totally an

unusual book and haunting.

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LibraryThing member queencersei

Await Your Reply is a fast paced novel of three intersecting stories. The first story we are introduced to is that of college dropout Ryan, whose world has been turned upside down after learning a longtime family secret. Ryan is led into a life of forgery and identity theft by his father Jay, the

result of which is devastating to Ryan.

Lucy is an unpopular, unloved high school graduate from Pompey Ohio. Lucy escapes her humdrum life by sneaking away with one of her high school teachers, George Orson. They end up in an abandoned motel in Nebraska. Lucy’s boredom soon turns to disillusionment and finally distrust has George becomes more of a stranger to her. It doesn’t take Lucy long to realize that the man whom she impulsively entrusted her life to is not who she thought he was at all.

And finally there is Miles Cheshire. In his early 30’s Miles is lonely and disconnected from life. He obsessively chases his missing twin brother Hayden across the country. Hayden suffers from schizophrenia and has dropped out of society, leaving a trail of taunting clues and broken lives for Miles to trace.

The real genius of the story is the eventual realization that the main character is not Ryan, Lucy or Miles, but a mysterious fourth character, who binds all of these stories together. Though Ryan, Lucy and Miles never meet, they are all drawn in and profoundly affected by this character. Await Your Reply is an engrossing, fascinating read. Clever readers will likely figure out by the middle of the book how these stories are all connected. But that realization in no way detracts from this fascinating read.

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LibraryThing member RoxieF

Three stories that eventually link together at the end. One story revolves around Ryan. A college student flunking out, he finds out his father is actually his dead-beat uncle. He leaves college to be with his father, and they run illegal scams that eventually leads to a horrific end. Another

revolves around Miles, a man who has wasted his life looking for his schizophrenic twin brother. The third story revolves around Lucy, a teenage girl whose parents are both killed in an accident. She ends up running off with one of her teachers, who is not what he originally seemed. That is a reoccurring theme, people not being who they first appear. I read Chaon’s other book You Remind Me of Me. I find his books to be too depressing for my taste, but this one was interesting enough to make me want to get to the end to understand how everything comes together.

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LibraryThing member bookaholicgirl

This is an amazing book that sucks you in from the very first line. The concept of identity in this era of Facebook, YouTube, etc. is an interesting and ever-changing one and the author does an outstanding job with this subject. Each of the three stories is wonderfully compelling. I do admit to

spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out how they were connected but I enjoyed every minute of that time. I would highly recommend this book.

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LibraryThing member dianelr

This is not my typical type book and I thought that it sounded intriguing ... as I do read character driven books on occasion. I will be honest and say that I couldn't get past page 96. I think part of it is that I only get 10-15 minutes to read at a time and with the 3 parallel stories -- going

forward and backward -- I just couldn't keep on top of all the people and their story lines. I even jumped to the end to see what the denoument was and it didn't interest me enough to go back, finish reading and see how the story played out.

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LibraryThing member Gammy

I liked the three separate storylines and wondered how the author was going to have them all come together at some point. The interceptions are brilliantly and subtlely crafted. The timeline pleasantly surprised me - not what I expected. My beef with this book is that I wanted all my questions

answered and they weren't. I do not like books that leave me hanging - the story ended, just not where I wanted it to. On the other hand, to me, a good story creeps into your thoughts at odd times in the days after you've read it and this book certainly did that to me. I read at least 100 books a year and am glad I got the chance to read this one.

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LibraryThing member HippieLunatic

This is a spectacularly written book, focusing on the lives of three primary characters. While the characters might never all be in a scene at one time, nonetheless, they are all entwined with one another. M

My only complaint, and I'm not sure it's valid as a complaint, is the amount of the book

that is delivered to the reader before I can see any of the connections between the characters. And even after finishing it, I am wondering if I go back and reread it, will I see the connections as I do now (a bit too late, a bit too topical for the amount of time I've invested in the book)? Or will I catch glimpses, hints and shadows of the connections that I wasn't careful enough to see the first time through?

Either way, Chaon is able to piece together a complex story about identity. One which deserves to be cherished... especially in how modern an exploration it is on what identity is. Await Your Reply includes references to many aspects of identity is today... they may be superficial to some readers (such as hair color and facebook) but it created a world more real and encompassing to this reader.

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