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You Came Back: A Novel
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Published:
Grand Central Publishing 2012
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Available from OverDrive
Description
Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.
But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark—who does not believe in ghosts—come to accept the mounting evidence that Brendan's is real? Will his engagement to his new love Allison be threatened by the reappearance in Mark's life of Chloe—who does believe? If the ghost is real, what can these two wounded parents do to help their son?
You Came Back examines the beauty and danger of belief in all its forms—not only belief in the supernatural, but in the love that binds parents and children, husbands and wives.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
06/12/2012
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781455509980, 9781455506682
ASIN:
B005UK9PHE
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Christopher Coake. (2012). You Came Back: A Novel. Grand Central Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Christopher Coake. 2012. You Came Back: A Novel. Grand Central Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Christopher Coake, You Came Back: A Novel. Grand Central Publishing, 2012.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Christopher Coake. You Came Back: A Novel. Grand Central Publishing, 2012.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:16:50
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:40:33
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 03:24:06
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      • bioText: Christopher Coake is the author of We're In Trouble, which was chosen for the PEN/Bingham Award of 2005. In addition, Coake was among "Granta's Best of Young American Novelists" in 2007. His stories have been published in several literary journals. A native Hoosier, he received his M.F.A. in fiction from Ohio State University. He now lives in Reno, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada.
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You Came Back
fullDescription
Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.
But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark—who does not believe in ghosts—come to accept the mounting evidence that Brendan's is real? Will his engagement to his new love Allison be threatened by the reappearance in Mark's life of Chloe—who does believe? If the ghost is real, what can these two wounded parents do to help their son?
You Came Back examines the beauty and danger of belief in all its forms—not only belief in the supernatural, but in the love that binds parents and children, husbands and wives.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        May 14, 2012
        In his suspenseful but unremarkable debut novel (after the story collection We're In Trouble Now), Coake explores how a tragic past can threaten a happy future. Years after the accidental death of his seven-year-old son, Brendan, and the subsequent dissolution of his marriage, Mark Fife is finally ready to move on with his life. On a snowy morning, he even considers proposing to his girlfriend, Allison, but he gets spooked by a middle-aged woman who seems to be following him. That woman, Connie Pelham, bought his old house, and her son says he can't sleep because Brendan's ghost is calling out for his dad. Mark doesn't believe in ghosts but the idea of his dead son needing help unnerves him. He struggles to find a way to tell his ex-wife Chloe about Connie's claims, while grappling with his own grief, regret, and frustration. Meanwhile Chloe's maternal love and internal conflicts form a maelstrom that tempts Mark to abandon his and Allison's dreams of a shared future. Allison has a powerful secret of her own, but as Chloe and Brendan draw Mark back into the past he becomes deaf to the pleas of those who need him most in the present. In competent prose, Coake teases out the ways that people can be faithful—not only to spouses, but to the past, the future, and themselves.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        June 15, 2012
        A man grows increasingly convinced the ghost of his son haunts his previous home in this fast-paced suburban gothic tale. The debut novel by PEN/Bingham Award winner Coake (Creative Writing/U. of Nevada; stories: We're in Trouble, 2005) opens with its hero, Mark, increasingly harassed by Connie, who owns the house where his son, Brendan, died years before in a fall that snapped his neck. Mark is eager to move on with his life, preparing to marry his fiancee, Allison, and cutting the cord with Brendan's mother, Chloe. But Connie insists Brendan is "present" in the home, and Chloe is so bereaved she's inclined to investigate. The plot hinges on making even the slightest possibility of a haunting seem credible, and Coake stretches out the story to sell that point, shuttling Mark between skepticism and belief. That makes for some wheel-spinning pages, and as a ghost story the novel feels restrained and low on chills. But Coake is expert at defining character: As Mark does all that waffling (and revisits his old drinking habit), he opens up to himself about the feelings of guilt and loss that have tormented him since Brendan died. And though the story is dialogue-heavy and engineered as a page-turner, Coake never lets the story move so fast that he can't deliver an elegant, forceful observation about the ways couples (and exes) parry with each other as they struggle to get along. Our pasts have ways of worming into us if we fail to confront them, Coake argues--if ghosts aren't actually real, they have a metaphorical power that makes them effectively real. The ghost question is definitively settled in the closing pages, but it's the relationships between Mark and the two understandably frustrated women in his life that linger. An overlong but potent story, balancing supernatural gloom and marital conflict.

        COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        June 1, 2012

        A study of the mental gymnastics of grief, Coake's first novel is a vivid conception of a parent's worst nightmare, with a twist. Seven years ago, Mark lost his seven-year-old son to an accident; he has since divorced his wife, Chloe, and has a new fiancee. His tenuous equilibrium is shattered by a report from the current owners of Mark and Chloe's old home, where their son died: it's haunted by their son's ghost. While Chloe reacts positively, Mark becomes angry and starts drinking again, and the resultant confusion is further complicated by the introduction of a spirit medium. Mark barely escapes the turmoil with his life. VERDICT A captivating page-turner that examines the mechanics of loss and the seductions of belief, this novel, with its combination of tragedy and hope, has an irresistible appeal, offering quite a ride while still delivering a cold dose of reality. Readers will be left wondering what they would do in Mark's place. Good for all who enjoy fiction about family relationships. [See Prepub Alert, 12/19/11.]--Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos Lib., CA

        Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        May 15, 2012
        Seven years after the death of his young son, Brendan, in a freak accident, Mark Fife has finally made a new life for himself. Although Chloe, the love of his life, divorced him not long after they lost their son, Mark is in a new relationship and is finding great career success. Then he is accosted by the woman who lives in his old house; she tells him a shocking story. She claims her son has seen Brendan's ghost and that he is crying out for his father. As soon as Chloe hears about the incident, she is back in Mark's life, insisting that they contact a medium. And in what seems like an instant, Mark is back in the grip of grief, mourning his son all over again. He sees that it is within his grasp to reclaim a portion of his old life if he'll agree to accept, as Chloe does, that their son's spirit is real. In a gripping and sorrowful narrative, Coake explores the toll of grief, the value of loyalty, and the nature of belief.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

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Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.
But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark—who does not believe in ghosts—come to accept the mounting evidence that Brendan's is real? Will his engagement to his new love Allison be threatened by the reappearance in Mark's life of Chloe—who does believe? If the ghost is real, what can these two wounded parents do to help their son?
You Came Back examines the beauty and danger of belief in all its forms—not only belief in the supernatural, but in the love that binds parents and children, husbands and wives.
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