Arrowood: A Novel

by Laura McHugh

Overview

“Superb and subtle psychological suspense.”—Lee Child

A haunting novel from the author of The Weight of Blood about a young woman’s return to her childhood home—and her encounter with the memories and family secrets it holds

ITW THRILLER AWARD FINALIST

Arrowood is the most ornate and grand of the historical houses that line the Mississippi River in southern Iowa. But the house has a mystery it has never revealed: It’s where Arden Arrowood’s younger twin sisters vanished on her watch twenty years ago—never to be seen again. After the twins’ disappearance, Arden’s parents divorced and the Arrowoods left the big house that had been in their family for generations. And Arden’s own life has fallen apart: She can’t finish her master’s thesis, and a misguided love affair has ended badly. She has held on to the hope that her sisters are still alive, and it seems she can’t move forward until she finds them. When her father dies and she inherits Arrowood, Arden returns to her childhood home determined to discover what really happened to her sisters that traumatic summer.

Arden’s return to the town of Keokuk—and the now infamous house that bears her name—is greeted with curiosity. But she is welcomed back by her old neighbor and first love, Ben Ferris, whose family, she slowly learns, knows more about the Arrowoods’ secrets and their small, closed community than she ever realized. With the help of a young amateur investigator, Arden tracks down the man who was the prime suspect in the kidnapping. But the house and the surrounding town hold their secrets close—and the truth, when Arden finds it, is more devastating than she ever could have imagined.

Arrowood is a powerful and resonant novel that examines the ways in which our lives are shaped by memory. As with her award-winning debut novel, The Weight of Blood, Laura McHugh has written a thrilling novel in which nothing is as it seems, and in which our longing for the past can take hold of the present in insidious and haunting ways.

Praise for Arrowood

“This robust, old-fashioned gothic mystery has everything you’re looking for: a creepy old house, a tenant with a secret history, and even a few ghosts. Laura McHugh’s novel sits at the intersection of memory and history, astutely asking whether we carry the past or it carries us.”—Jodi Picoult

“An eloquently eerie tale.”—Booklist

“Poignant . . . lyrical.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A chilling, twisting tale of family, memory, and home . . . This engaging and thrilling tale about a young woman’s homecoming, the vagaries of memory, and the impact of tragedy on both a town and a family is a terrific choice for Laura Lippman and Sue Grafton readers.”—Library Journal (starred review)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812986419
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/30/2017
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Laura McHugh is the author of The Weight of Blood, which won both the 2015 International Thriller Writers award and a Silver Falchion award for best first novel, and was nominated for a Barry award and an Alex award. She spent part of her childhood in the town of Keokuk, Iowa, where Arrowood is set, and now lives in Columbia, Missouri, with her husband and two young children.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Arrowood"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Laura McHugh.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Reading Group Guide

1. How has Arden’s past shaped her into the person she is at the beginning of the novel?

2. The novel is set in Keokuk, Iowa, a town on the Mississippi River. At one time it was a prosperous town, but now many of its beautiful homes are neglected and deteriorating. How does the setting contribute to the overall story?

3. Arden’s mother warned her that it was a mistake to go back to Arrowood, saying it was best left in the past, and that if Arden was smart she’d “pray for an electrical fire and a swift insurance payout.” But Arden insists that she “had loved this house beyond reason, had felt its absence like the ache of a poorly set bone.” Discuss the role that the house plays in the novel.

4. To cope with the tragedy of the past, Arden’s mother rewrites history, pushing down her emotional pain and refusing to acknowledge the family’s loss. Toward the end of the novel, Arden says, “I couldn’t cauterize my wounds as my mother had done.” Can you relate to this coping mechanism? Compare and contrast Arden’s way of dealing with painful memories to her mother’s.

5. There’s a saying that you can’t go home again. What do you think it means? How does it apply to Arden’s situation? What do you think of her decision to stay in Keokuk and let go of Arrowood?

6. When asked why solving the mystery of the twins’ death was important to him, Josh says, “It’s like a riddle. . . . I hate not knowing the answer.” In what ways has Josh’s past shaped who he is as an adult? Do you think Josh’s and Arden’s analagous childhood experiences affected them in similar or different ways? How does Josh’s work with his website, Midwest Mysteries, compare to Arden’s thesis project?

7. In your opinion, who was responsible for the death of the twins?

8. Describe the relationship between Arden and Ben. Did the way it evolves in the novel surprise you? What did you expect to happen between them? Did your feelings about Ben’s mother, Mrs. Ferris, change over the course of the novel?

9. In what fundamental ways has Arden changed by the end of the novel? Do you think she will finally be able to move forward?

10. What did you think of the book’s surprise ending—-or was it a surprise? Discuss the role of memory in the novel. How are memory, truth, and nostalgia (“the bittersweet longing for a time and place left behind”) intertwined, and what impact do they have on the present—day lives of the characters? If Arden were to rework her thesis for graduate school, what would she write?

Editorial Reviews

This robust, old-fashioned gothic mystery has everything you’re looking for: a creepy old house, a tenant with a secret history, and even a few ghosts. Laura McHugh’s novel sits at the intersection of memory and history, astutely asking whether we carry the past or it carries us.”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Storyteller and Leaving Time

“Superb and subtle psychological suspense, and a compelling mystery, too . . . I thought I knew who did it, but I was wrong—four times.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels

“Cool, clever and infused with a compellingly chilly melancholy, Arrowood kept me guessing and re-guessing all the way to its inexorable conclusion”—Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10

“An eloquently eerie tale.”—Booklist

“Poignant . . . lyrical.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A chilling, twisting tale of family, memory, and home . . . This engaging and thrilling tale about a young woman’s homecoming, the vagaries of memory, and the impact of tragedy on both a town and a family is a terrific choice for Laura Lippman and Sue Grafton readers.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“A pitch-perfect example of Southern Gothic”—The Times

“Magical second novel from the talented McHugh.”—Daily Mail

“A lyrically haunting story . . . It’s so atmospheric you can practically hear the floorboards creek.”—Peterborough Telegraph

“Another absorbing, spine-tingling novel brimming with atmosphere.”—Daily Express

“I cannot praise this book enough. It draws you in to the point you felt like someone you loved had disappeared and you’re haunted by it. Laura McHugh did a brilliant job of showing us that our lives can be shaped by our memories and that those are not always as accurate as we would believe. . . . This was a great story of how we create stories to understand our past and to hide or forget the secrets we keep.”—San Francisco Book Review

“Part mystery, part drama, Arrowood offers a little of everything to readers in search of a satisfying story.”—St. Louis Dispatch

“Arrowood is a highly atmospheric read and McHugh’s prose is beautifully descriptive without slowing the action. . . . This is an engrossing story that explores the aftermath of loss on those that live through it.”—BookBrowse

From the Publisher

★ 04/11/2016
A failed graduate student’s return to the family mansion she inherited from her grandfather touches off a maelstrom of emotion, regret, and memories in McHugh’s poignant second novel, which features just a smidgeon of the supernatural. Arden Arrowood’s two-year-old twin sisters, Violet and Tabitha, were kidnapped from their front yard in the small town of Keokuk, Iowa, bordering the Mississippi River. Charged with watching the twins while their pill-addicted mother was sleeping, eight-year-old Arden stepped away for a minute before the toddlers went missing; all she remembers is chasing a gold car speeding away. The twins were never found and their disappearance fractured the family in ways Arden is just beginning to acknowledge. Settling into the mansion 20 years later, Arden deals with a floodgate of childhood memories as she inches toward the truth while pursued by Josh Kyle, who wants to write about the vanished twins on his website, Midwest Mysteries. Lyrical prose and in-depth character studies examine the reliability of memory, punctuated by believable suspense and aided by a careful look at a small town. (July)

Publishers Weekly

★ 06/01/2016
The latest novel from McHugh (The Weight of Blood) is a chilling, twisting tale of family, memory, and home. After Arden Arrowood's father dies, she inherits her family's grand old house in the worn-down town of Keokuk, IA. But a return to Arrowood, which sits on the banks of the Mississippi River, forces Arden to face the family tragedy that has shaped her life: the mysterious disappearance of her infant twin sisters. Coming home also means reconnecting with people from her past, including her boy-next-door first crush, and sifting through a murky mix of family history and local lore. As Arden struggles to reconcile her own memories with new information about her siblings' disappearance, she begins to question not only her own past but also the full story of her family's history. VERDICT This engaging and thrilling tale about a young woman's homecoming, the vagaries of memory, and the impact of tragedy on both a town and a family is terrific choice for Laura Lippman and Sue Grafton readers. [See Prepub Alert, 2/1/16.]—Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins

Library Journal

2016-05-03
A troubled young woman returns home to Keokuk, Iowa, to reclaim a surprise inheritance and a tortured past in McHugh's second literary mystery (Weight of Blood, 2015).Arden Arrowood learns of her paternal grandfather's legacy just as her life has hit rock bottom. Her family's historic homestead, Arrowood, her childhood home, had been held in trust for years to keep it away from her feckless father; now he's died, and the house is hers. She leaves Colorado, master's degree incomplete, with mysterious scars on her arm. Her mother had divorced her father to marry a megachurch pastor and now seems perfectly content wearing outfits from Chico's and watching QVC. The house has a difficult legacy. In 1994, the Arrowoods' toddler twin girls went missing from their front yard. Arden, then 8, had briefly left her sisters unattended and thought she saw a yellow sedan speeding off with the towhead twins in the back. Her best friend, Ben, a neighboring child, confirmed her account. A man named Harold Singer was arrested but, due to lack of evidence, was never prosecuted. But Singer's life was destroyed, and the twins' bodies were never found. Now, Arden reconnects with her old life, including rekindled feelings for Ben, now a dentist who's engaged to the former high school prom queen. The kindness of Arrowood's caretaker, Heaney, who responds to Arden's frequent calls about leaky plumbing, is tinged with creepiness. Josh Kyle, the founder of a cold-case website called Midwest Mysteries, contacts her. Singer had an unsavory hobby of taking candid photos of young children, and one of these, obtained by Josh, shows the twins, captured in their last moments on Arrowood's lawn—but Josh thinks the length of the shadows in the pictures might actually prove Singer's innocence. As she ponders possible scenarios, Arden is forced to confront the family dysfunction that predated the crime. Depressed because Arden's father was having an affair with Ben's mother, her own mother spent years in a drugged haze. Scenes are dragged out with much description of Keokuk arcana, which distracts from the crime story. The ending is inconclusive in the worst way; in other words, culpability is established—but not addressed. Long on atmosphere, short on answers.

Kirkus Reviews