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Written with the riveting storytelling and the moral seriousness of authors like Emma Donoghue, Adam Johnson, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld, Cartwheel is a suspenseful and haunting novel of an American foreign exchange student arrested for murder, and a father trying to hold his family together.
When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters: the colorful buildings, the street food, the handsome, elusive man next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore, but Lily didn't come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans.
Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who's asking. As the case takes shape - revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA - Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her: the media, her family, the man who loves her and the man who seeks her conviction. With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic investigation of the ways we decide what to see - and to believe - in one another and ourselves.
Jennifer duBois's debut novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction and was honored by the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 program. In Cartwheel, duBois delivers a novel of propulsive psychological suspense and rare moral nuance. Who is Lily Hayes? What happened to her roommate? No two readers will agree. Cartwheel will keep you guessing until the final page, and its questions about how much we really know about ourselves will linger well beyond.
You can see the full discussion in our legacy forum here. This discussion will contain spoilers!
Some of the recent comments posted about Cartwheel:
"The things that go wrong are rarely the things you’ve thought to worry about." Why do you think the author makes such a pronouncement at the beginning of the novel? What does she mean? Is this true in your life?
Instead of worrying, I like to plan. - judyk
Cover design.
I bought this book and did not receive an advanced edition. I do not particularly find the cover appealing. If I had walked past this book in the book store and had not read any reviews recommending it, I am not sure I would have been interested. - rebeccar
Did knowing the Amanda Knox trial outcome influence you?
The ambiguity at the end parallels the ambiguity of the Knox case. I felt as though this book was just a stolen story. It really bothered me. - malindan
Did you believe in Lily's innocence...or guilt? Why?
This was left unclear.....intentionally. I think most readers would be swayed by whether they liked or disliked Lily.......just as people attribute guilt or innocence to Amanda Knox. - malindan
Do you believe the whole story comes out at Lily’s trial?
I do not know if the whole story was suppose to come out at the trial. It seems that the justice procedure in place is a little different from ours and that a lot of "decisions/perceptions" were determined before the "trial".
But either way I do not... - beverlyj
"While muddying the waters of right and wrong is almost always a valiant cause in literature, this novel reads more like an intellectual exercise in examining all the different angles rather than an emotional engagement with human beings." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. [DuBois] does an excellent job of creating and maintaining a pervasive feeling of foreboding and suspense... An acute psychological study of character that rises to the level of the philosophical... Cartwheel is very much its own individual work of the author's creative imagination."—Booklist
"Jennifer duBois, a writer whose fierce intelligence is matched only by her deep humanity, hits us with a marvelous second novel that intertwines a gripping tale of murder abroad with an intimate story of family heartbreak. Every sentence crackles with wit and vision. Every page casts a spell." - Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestselling author of Seating Arrangements
"Like its namesake, Cartwheel will upend you; rarely does a novel this engaging ring so true. Inscribed with the emotional intimacy of memory, this is one story you will not soon forget." - T. Geronimo Johnson, author of Hold It 'Til It Hurts
"Cartwheel is so gripping, so fantastically evocative, that I could not, would not, put it down. Jennifer duBois is a writer of thrilling psychological precision." - Justin Torres, New York Times bestselling author of We the Animals
"Jennifer duBois's Cartwheel seized my attention and held it in a white-knuckled grip until I found myself reluctantly and compulsively turning its final pages very late at night...Jennifer duBois has captured the sleazy leer of lurid crime and somehow twisted it into a work of art." - Benjamin Hale, author of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore
This information about Cartwheel was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Ilana Panich-Linsman
Jennifer duBois is the author of A Partial History of Lost Causes, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction. The National Book Foundation named her one of its 5 Under 35 authors. Her second novel, Cartwheel, was a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award. An alumna of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Stanford University's Stegner Fellowship program, duBois is the recipient of a Whiting Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing grant. She teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University.
Author Interview
Link to Jennifer duBois's Website
Name Pronunciation
Jennifer duBois: Doo-Bwah
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