By Scott O'Connor | Tuesday, August 05, 2014 - Off the Shelf

When my first novel, Untouchable, was acquired by Tyrus Books, I’d heard of the publisher but never read one of their titles. In excitement (they’re going to publish my book!) and anxiety (do they publish anything good?), I went to my local bookstore and bought the only Tyrus title on the shelves: Peter Gadol’s Silver Lake. 
By the time I finished reading, I knew I would be honored to have my novel sit alongside this remarkable book. The subtle complexity of the relationship in Silver Lake inspired me to dig deeper into the marriage of my own new novel, Half World. 

 Every marriage has its mysteries, its secret histories, its unspoken ambitions and regrets. Even at their most benign, these hidden truths create cracks that can grow and need to be patched if the bond is going to hold. 

 In his beautiful, unsettling sixth novel, Silver Lake, Peter Gadol gives us just such a marriage, with all its little everyday fissures, and then adds a seismic shock that turns the relationship inside out, creating a lushly described domestic drama that becomes a page-turning detective story, sending one spouse chasing the other through the shared maze of their relationship.