Send for Me

I can hardly speak.
 
 
 
It starts with the panic, the sound of sharp knocking. The pounding on Annelise s door, a crash in her skull, jolting her from sleep. They re coming. Her heart slams, and she sits up, blind in the darkness. Her arms reach out. Where is the baby? Fear floods her lungs. She s drowning.
 
They re coming. Breathe. Hold the baby close, keep her quiet.
 
Is there something else in the churning flood of terror? In the squeeze of panic, the slightest slackening, relief? She s been waiting so long for this moment, dread her constant companion, and now it s here. Whatever horror is about to befall her, she won t have to fear it any longer.
 
In the room, silent now, she strains to hear. Her heart is pounding so hard her body is thrumming, her hands trembling. Is that her husband next to her, snoring softly? Is that the warm, reassuring shape of him? They will take him, too. They ll take all of it, everything and everyone she has ever loved. In an instant. A flash.
 
 
Years will pass, a long, surprising slant of light, and this terror will abate. She will pick her daughter up from school, stand in her kitchen with her hands on her hips, sip from a glass in the evening, slip under smooth sheets. But this will always be her frozen moment, the definition of her days. They will always be pounding on the door in the middle of the night. They will always be coming.
 
 
 
An hour doesn t pass that I don t think about you.
 
 
 
There is so much work to do. Toil is a constant in her life, the ongoing story of her years. In fact, Klara takes some comfort in its predictability, the way that a Sunday afternoon of polishing silver or washing floors can ease her nerves and stretch her mind into a pleasant blankness. And there is the undeniable satisfaction of a task completed, the pleasing order and gleam of a finely tended home.
 
Of course, there s also the bakery:

LAUREN FOX is the author of the novels Days of Awe, Still Life with Husband, and Friends Like Us. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Parenting, and Psychology Today. She lives in Milwaukee with her family.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR  An Indie Next Great Read  A Parade Best Releases of the Year

Beautifully written, deeply felt, tender and thoughtful.
The New York Times Book Review

Incandescent. . . . Send for Me reads like a memoir but has the kind of intimate detail born in the imagination of a novelist at the top of her game.
People

An artfully constructed and richly absorbing novel that shows how love is strengthened, not weakened, over distance and time.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

A richly imagined, lyrically written story.
NPR

Imbued with lyrical prose, Send for Me is a beautiful tale of heartbreak and renewal, and of the love and loss we carry with us, generation after generation.
Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones

Page after page of Send for Me shines with the author s brilliant prose. . . . Fox has written a book you will not soon forget.
The Florida Times-Union
 
Send for Me is a rare and beautiful novel. I loved this book.
Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train

Resonates long after its final pages. . . . Its beautifully rendered vignettes are, in essence, about the fraying wire that connects us to the past.
The Anniston Star
 
Extraordinarily nuanced and moving. . . . Fox elegantly incorporates lines and short excerpts of her own great-grandmother s letters, adding to the power and intimacy of this fine novel.
The National Book Review
 
Subtle, striking, and punctuated by snippets of family letters. . . . An intimate, insightful, intricately rendered story of intergenerational trauma and love.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)