Goliath: A Novel

Open this book and enter Goliath―a town as fascinating and alive as Elizabeth Strout's Crosby, Maine, or Richard Russo's Empire Falls. When Percy Harding, Goliath's most important citizen, is discovered dead by the railroad tracks one perfect autumn afternoon, no one can quite believe it's really happened. Percy, the president of the town's world-renowned furniture company, had seemed invincible. Only Rosamond Rogers, Percy's secretary, may have the answer to the question everyone is asking: why?

Rosamond has been abandoned by her husband, and fears being left behind by her daughter. She's accustomed to being lonely and shunned. But in the face of Percy's death and all that it means for the town, the people of Goliath, one by one, come to confess and confide in her. Rosamond's years of loneliness have given her an empathy that she taps into to reunite the grief-shaken community. Goliath, a story of loss and love, of forgiveness and letting go, is a lyrical swoon of a novel by exceptionally talented newcomer Susan Woodring.