Hidden by Paul Jaskunas

• Jacksonville Public Library, Jacksonville, USA
  

Publisher of Nominated Edition
Free Press ISBN 0743257480

As unnerving as it is mesmerizing, Hidden is an evocative, emotionally charged domestic drama - a wilful and traumatized woman's painful search for the truth about the man who assaulted her one summer night.

Six years after the attack, Maggie Wilson receives a call from the prosecutor who helped put her husband in jail after Maggie identified him as the man who nearly killed her. Told that another inmate has confessed to the crime and that her ex-husband will be freed, the shock plunges Maggie into memories of her stormy marriage to Nate Duke, the ambitious heir to a real estate company. Secluded in an old farmhouse that was her marital home, Maggie relives her marriage to Nate and his abusive treatment of her. But in her present, a very different man is haunting her - the born-again convict who has confessed to the crime. As his story competes with hers, Maggie pores through trial transcripts, old journals, and photo albums, trying fruitlessly to remember exactly what happened.

Written in spare, elegant prose, Paul Jaskunas's novel reads like a waking dream as Maggie is torn by the question - was it Nate? Or was it this stranger who seems to know intimate details? And what will it cost her to discover the truth? A work of searing suspense written in the heroine's brave voice, Hidden is ultimately about a woman confronting the betrayal of her body and the ambiguity of her mind.

A recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, Paul Jaskunas lives in the USA. Hidden is his first novel. He is currently at work on his second.