Mathilda Savitch

A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR BEST BOOK OF 2009
A BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF 2009
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2009
WINNER OF THE PEN USA AWARD FOR FICTION
Fear doesn't come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bear to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Her grief-stricken parents have basically been sleepwalking ever since, and it is Mathilda's sworn mission to shock them back to life. Her strategy? Being bad.
Mathilda decides she's going to figure out what lies behind the catastrophe. She starts sleuthing through her sister's most secret possessions-e-mails, clothes, notebooks, whatever her determination and craftiness can ferret out. But she must risk a great deal-in fact, she has to leave behind everything she loves-in order to discover the truth.
Startling, funny, touching, odd, truthful, page-turning, and, in the end, heartbreaking, Mathilda Savitch is an extraordinary debut.

VICTOR LODATO is a playwright and the author of the novel Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN Center USA Award for fiction. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Victor was born and raised in New Jersey and currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon, and Tucson, Arizona.