Gone (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2012)

For fourteen years, Eve Adams, 42, has raised her two children and emotionally supported her husband Eric's once famous, now fading sculpting career. As Eric struggles to maintain inspiration even while sinking deeper into a creative slump, Eve's formerly part-time work suddenly takes off: she publishes a book on nutrition and has a growing roster of overweight clients she "coaches." One night, Eric leaves to drive the babysitter home and simply doesn't return. Stunned, hurt, close to broke, and a not a little pissed off, Eve must figure out what's going on--and how to keep her family, including her volatile teenage daughter, from unraveling.

Set in an arty Massachusetts town and amidst the economic and nutritional chaos currently plaguing American society, GONE is a compelling drama--told from both husband's and wife's points-of-view--of contemporary marriage, parenthood, sexual tension, depression, art, money, and passion. In this novel about change--about redefining, in middle age, your role as a parent, best friend, or spouse--Hanauer's characters must learn when to let something go, when to fight to hold on, and how and when to forgive each other...and themselves.

** Indie "Next List" nominee

** Chosen as one of four "Best Summer Reads" in Shape magazine (6/12)

** Chosen as a "Book We Love" in Ladies Home Journal (7/12)

"Beautiful, complicated, and often funny...." 
--O-The Oprah Magazine (7/12)

"...the most beautifully crafted novel I have read in a while... Gone is a realistic love story for our age." 
--The NJ Star Ledger

"Cathi Hanauer's GONE offers a compassionate, clear-eyed vision of what is gained and lost in a contemporary marriage when the wife and mother begins gaining power outside the home." 
--Vanity Fair (7/12)

"An involving drama about the challenges of marriage and middle age." 
--People (6/25/12)

"Cathi Hanauer has in several books explored the stresses and strains within modern marriage; in her new novel, GONE, she plangently and vividly depicts a relationship run off the tracks entirely-and then shows us why it might yet merit saving." 
--Elle (lead review, 7/12)

"If you're looking for more than fluff and folly this summer, Hanauer's novel delivers. At its core, though, it remains a simple, beautifully told story about a marriage, love, and what remains when one partner has gone. The beauty of GONE is in Hanauer's adeptness at character development and richness of language. Layered and finely drawn, her characters, even the minor ones, jump off the page and have an important story to tell. The depiction of Eve's clients as they struggle with their health and wellness, along with accompanying discourse lambasting the diet and weight loss industry, transports this novel beyond a simple tale of marital woe." 
--The Florida Times-Union

"Hanauer's treatment of Eve and Eric's-as well as their children's-predicaments rings true with emotional clarity, and her eye for detail and ear for conversational patterns lends credibility to this stark family drama." 
--Publisher's Weekly (8/12)

"Summer's nearly over, but a good beach book can be read any time of year. This is one is far better than the stereotypical beach-y fluff, yet contains the elements that make such books so appealing: it's about love, marriage, raising children, succeeding at work and finding oneself at an age when such exploration is thought to be long past. What would you do if your spouse just took off one night: mourn, rejoice, go numb, get going? Eve's story will have you pondering this frightening, yet possibly liberating, turn of events." 
--Hartford Public Library Blog

"Hanauer delivers a novel that is rich with relatable characters, realistic in its approach, and highly readable." 
--Kirkus Reviews (6/12/12)

"This compelling read about marriage, identity, change, and adaptation nicely examines, from both the male and female lens, how marital expectations and roles may need some tweaking when life throws its curves. A smart, modern read that is relatable and engaging." 
--Library Journal (6/15/12)

"...Hanauer's crisp examination of a troubled family keenly depicts the mercurial nature of contemporary marriage and parenthood." 
--BookList (6/15/12)

Cathi Hanauer's new novel, GONE, picks up ten years down the road from THE BITCH IN THE HOUSE, her groundbreaking best-selling 2002 anthology of marital rage, domestic wrangling, and passion (or lack thereof). Hanauer evokes the painful rupture in Eric and Eve's marriage brilliantly, with compassion, insight, and suspense that does not let up until the final page. This is a gorgeous, wrenching book, a literary feat. --Kate Christensen, Pen Faulkner Award-winning author of The Astral and The Great Man

Cathi Hanauer is a great chronicler of modern love and life, who has created, in the pages of GONE, the beautiful, intricate story of a beautiful, intricate marriage. This novel will resonate with anyone who has ever been married --which is to say, anyone who has ever struggled to reconcile love against ambivalence, loyalty against the lure of solitude, and domestic fidelity against the call of the open road. You will see yourself in these pages, and your heart will open wide. 
--Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Committed

Trust Cathi Hanauer to write such a touching, funny, smart book about the way families and marriage both gird and choke a life. The husband and wife here, a sensitive and spirited pair, each yearn for freedom as they still fully embrace the bonds that tether them to one another. It's that earthly paradox that Hanauer understands so deeply, and executes so beautifully in her latest, greatest novel--Gone is a full pleasure to read! 
--Helen Schulman, New York Times bestselling author of This Beautiful Life.

"GONE is at once a vividly realistic portrait of marriage and motherhood, and a peek into the inner world of a singular character. Cathi Hanauer succeeds beautifully in creating a story that will make you care, and keep turning the pages to discover what will happen this family, all the while rooting for them." 
--Dani Shapiro, author of Devotion and Black & White.

"GONE is about the big things--love and death and work and children--and it treats them all with freshness and acuity. Hanauer draws her characters with real generosity, and with insight about the pitfalls of contemporary life. It's a compelling, big-hearted book." 
--Joshua Henkin, author of The World Without You and Matrimony