Fog & Car — Eugene Lim

Fiction. Marooned in a small Midwest town shortly after his divorce, Jim Fog succumbs to purposelessness and nostalgia while his ex, Sarah Car, has moved to New York City with the ambition of skipping over any mourning for their marriage. And old friend, ignorant himself of his action's consequences, enables the two protagonists to move through and haunt each other's lives. Eventually, the momentum of Fog and Car's alternating narratives push the two characters out of their static life-cages towards different unreal conclusions, and the narratives' shifting styles finally find a stunning equilibrium in a troubled and subversive escapism. Gary Lutz writes, "Eugene Lim renders the uncanny convergences of the lives of partners and strangers in a language entirely new. This is a deep, engulfing novel of breathtaking, even spooking precision--an altogether heady and heart-shaking debut."