I'll Never Be Long Gone: A Novel

On a brisk autumn night, Charles Bender Sr. walks into the woods behind his idyllic Vermont home with a shotgun and forever changes the lives of his two sons.
Charlie and Owen Bender are brothers and know each other better than they will ever know anyone. They are able to sit in silence and not speak, yet know exactly what the other is thinking. But fate, destiny, and a cryptic note can change even the closest of friendships.
In this note, Charles leaves the one thing that matters most to him -- his restaurant -- only to Charlie. To Owen, he leaves instructions to follow his own path, wherever it may take him.
On the serene banks of the Dog River, in the lush green countryside of Eden, Vermont, Charlie builds a life for himself that mimics the life his father threw away years before. He's happy enough running his father's restaurant and his only real regret is the absence of his brother. Once close, Charlie and Owen have not seen each other for years -- the ties of brotherhood torn apart by the strange legacy Charles Sr. had left them.
Charlie's is a solitary existence until he hires Claire Apple to assist him in the restaurant. They begin a passionate affair and, in Claire, Charlie feels he has found his reason for living. The two marry, but Charlie still longs for a relationship with his estranged brother.
Years later, when Owen, like the prodigal son, returns unannounced, Charlie feels his life is finally complete. But while Charlie opens his life and his home to his wayward brother, Claire is hesitant in accepting her brother-in-law into her family. She realizes Owen is harboring hidden resentment and jealousy for the life he could have had.
I'll Never Be Long Gone is a deeply felt novel about love, family, duplicity, heartbreak, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of rural Vermont and the drama of its seasons, it offers a rare glimpse into restaurant life, with vivid descriptions of cooking that rivals the best of American food writing. With evocative and lyrical language, it explores the terrain of the human heart, and reaffirms the power of love to transform lives.

Literature & Fiction

GREENE, THOMAS CHRISTOPHER

United States

William Morrow

The lives of brothers Charlie and Owen Bender are changed forever on the night their father walks into the Vermont woods with a death wish and a shotgun. The second shock comes when his suicide note bequeaths the family's restaurant to Charlie alone, while leaving Owen with instructions to follow his own path, wherever it may take him. Years later, the restaurant is a success. The void in Charlie's life, created by his beloved brother's absence, is finally filled when a passionate affair becomes a deeply satisfying marriage. And now prodigal son Owen is returning home, to be welcomed back into the family fold. But the cruel legacy that tore a brotherhood apart created wounds not easily healed . . . and there must be reckoning.

Harper Paperbacks

Working at the side of his fellow Portuguese townies on a commercial fishing boat in Rhode Island, seventeen-year-old Anthony reluctantly participates in a burglary only to cause an accidental death, an event after which he becomes determined to help a grieving young girl. By the author of I'll Never Be Long Gone.

Envious Moon: A Novel

An immensely talented writer whose work has been described as "incandescent" (Kirkus) and "poetic" (Booklist), Thomas Christopher Greene pens a haunting and deeply affecting portrait of one couple at their best and worst.
Inspired by a personal loss, Greene explores the way that tragedy and time assail one man's memories of his life and loves. Like his father before him, Arthur Winthrop is the Headmaster of Vermont's elite Lancaster School. It is the place he feels has given him his life, but is also the site of his undoing as events spiral out of his control. Found wandering naked in Central Park, he begins to tell his story to the police, but his memories collide into one another, and the true nature of things, a narrative of love, of marriage, of family and of a tragedy Arthur does not know how to address emerges. Luminous and atmospheric, bringing to life the tight-knit enclave of a quintessential New England boarding school, the novel is part mystery, part love story and an exploration of the ties of place and family. Beautifully written and compulsively readable, The Headmaster's Wife stands as a moving elegy to the power of love as an antidote to grief.
"A truly remarkable novel, I read the second half of The Headmaster's Wife with my mouth open, my jaw having dropped at the end of the first half. Thomas Christopher Greene knows how to hook a reader and land him." --Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls "An accomplished and artful storyteller, Greene has surprises in store as he unspools a plot that becomes as poignant as it is unpredictable." --Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed
"Greene's genre-bending novel of madness and despair evokes both the predatory lasciviousness of Nabokov's classic, Lolita, and the anxious ambiguity of Gillian Flynn's contemporary thriller, Gone Girl (2012)." --Booklist

The Headmaster's Wife: A Novel

Thomas Dunne Books

"Part of a grand literary tradition . . . Greene's plot has the tight, relentless pacing of a fine detective novel . . . Deeply felt . . . and utterly absorbing."―The Washington Post Like his father before him, Arthur Winthrop is the headmaster of Vermont's elite Lancaster School. It is the place he feels has given him his life, but is also the site of his undoing as events spiral out of his control. Found wandering naked in Central Park, he begins to tell his story to the police, but his memories collide into one another, and the true nature of things, a narrative of love, of marriage, of family, and of a tragedy Arthur does not know how to address emerges. Luminous and atmospheric, bringing to life the tight-knit enclave of a quintessential New England boarding school, the novel is part mystery, part love story, and an exploration of the ties of place and family. Beautifully written and compulsively readable, The Headmaster's Wife stands as a moving elegy to the power of love as an antidote to grief.

Picador

"Thomas Christopher Greene's If I Forget You is the most moving and beautifully-written love story I've read since Cold Mountain."―Howard Frank Mosher, author of God's Kingdom
Two former lovers reconnect in this beautiful and haunting tale of great lost love from the critically acclaimed author of The Headmaster's Wife
Deeply affecting and compulsively readable, The Headmaster's Wife was a breakout book for Thomas Christopher Greene. Now, Greene returns with a beautifully written, emotional new novel perfect for his growing audience.
 Twenty-one years after they were driven apart by circumstances beyond their control, two former lovers have a chance encounter on a Manhattan street. What follows is a tense, suspenseful exploration of the many facets of enduring love. Told from altering points of view through time, If I Forget You tells the story of Henry Gold, a poet whose rise from poverty embodies the American dream, and Margot Fuller, the daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, and their unlikely, star-crossed love affair, complete with the secrets they carry when they find each other for the second time. 
 Written in lyrical prose, If I Forget You is at once a great love story, a novel of marriage, manners, and family, a meditation on the nature of art, a moving elegy to what it means to love and to lose, and how the choices we make can change our lives forever.

If I Forget You: A Novel

Twenty-one years after they were driven apart by circumstances beyond their control, two former lovers have a chance encounter on a Manhattan street. What follows is a tense, suspenseful novel about enduring love. Told from altering points of view through time, Thomas Christopher Greene's If I Forget You tells the story of Henry Gold, a poet whose rise from poverty embodies the American dream, and Margot Fuller, the daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, and their unlikely, star-crossed love affair, complete with the secrets they carry when they find each other for the second time.

"A taut, well-written thriller...The pace is crisp, the surprises keep coming, and there are two big ones that readers are unlikely to see coming." - Associated Press A seemingly perfect marriage is threatened by the deadly secrets husband and wife keep from each other. Susannah, a young widow and single mother, has remarried well: to Max, a charismatic artist and popular speaker whose career took her and her fifteen-year-old son out of New York City and to a quiet Vermont university town. Strong-willed and attractive, Susannah expects that her life is perfectly in place again. Then one quiet morning she finds a note on her door: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. 
Max dismisses the note as a prank. But days after a neighborhood couple comes to dinner, the husband mysteriously dies in a tragic accident while on a run with Max. Soon thereafter, a second note appears on their door: DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT?
Both Susannah and Max are keeping secrets from the world and from each other―secrets that could destroy their family and everything they have built. Thomas Christopher Greene's The Perfect Liar is a thrilling novel told through the alternating perspectives of Susannah and Max with a shocking climax that no one will expect, from the bestselling author of The Headmaster’s Wife.

The Perfect Liar: A Novel

St.Martin's Press

"A taut, well-written thriller...The pace is crisp, the surprises keep coming, and there are two big ones that readers are unlikely to see coming." - Associated Press\nA seemingly perfect marriage is threatened by the deadly secrets husband and wife keep from each other.\nSusannah, a young widow and single mother, has remarried well: to Max, a charismatic artist and popular speaker whose career took her and her fifteen-year-old son out of New York City and to a quiet Vermont university town. Strong-willed and attractive, Susannah expects that her life is perfectly in place again. Then one quiet morning she finds a note on her door: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.\nMax dismisses the note as a prank. But days after a neighborhood couple comes to dinner, the husband mysteriously dies in a tragic accident while on a run with Max. Soon thereafter, a second note appears on their door: DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT?\nBoth Susannah and Max are keeping secrets from the world and from each other―secrets that could destroy their family and everything they have built. Thomas Christopher Greene's The Perfect Liar is a thrilling novel told through the alternating perspectives of Susannah and Max with a shocking climax that no one will expect, from the bestselling author of The Headmaster’s Wife.

Mirror Lake brilliantly explores life, death, love, and loss against the backdrop of rural Vermont and the drama of its seasons. Nathan Carter, a man in his twenties, moves from Boston to Eden, Vermont, following the death of his father and the end of yet another failed romance. When Carter's Jeep goes off the road in a snowstorm, seventy-nine-year-old Wallace Fiske nurses him back to health and the two become unlikely friends. Wallace begins to tell Nathan his story, a love story he was prepared to take to the grave with him. It is a tale of passion, of obsession, and ultimately, of tragedy. Along the way, Nathan, suspecting that Wallace is not telling him the whole truth, sets out to discover for himself what happened here at the edge of this small mountain lake fifty years before. In the process, Nathan not only discovers Wallace's dark secret, but also finds himself transformed by the experience, leading to an unforgettable conclusion. The novel unfolds between each man's present and past, and reveals the loves and passions that have defined their lives. Mirror Lake is a brilliant and suspenseful first novel about love, marriage, friendship, and betrayal.

Mirror Lake: A Novel

Contemporary

Simon&Schuster

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Books by GREENE, THOMAS CHRISTOPHER

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by GREENE, THOMAS CHRISTOPHER. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

I'll Never Be Long Gone: A Novel

I'll Never Be Long Gone: A Novel

Envious Moon: A Novel

The Headmaster's Wife: A Novel

The Headmaster's Wife: A Novel

If I Forget You: A Novel

If I Forget You: A Novel

The Perfect Liar: A Novel

The Perfect Liar: A Novel

Mirror Lake: A Novel