Unraveling Oliver: A Novel

Oliver Ryan appears to have an ideal life: he is charming and wealthy, living in a beautiful home with his wife Alice, whose award-winning children's books have contributed to his success. One evening, after dinner, Oliver brutally attacks Alice and leaves her severely injured. The people in Oliver's life—his mistress Moya, Veronique (a French woman who employed him at her vineyard years earlier), Alice's childhood friend Barney, and his college friend Michael—can only speculate about his motives. None of them understand the dark secret beneath his polished exterior. As Oliver's past is examined, a disturbing picture emerges. His life has been marked by abandonment, envy, and shame, concealed beneath decades of careful deception. The novel explores how Oliver's violent act connects to the psychological damage of his earlier years, revealing the mind of someone struggling to escape his own destructive past.