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Back Never Look Back Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

QUENTIN HAD NEVER met his father, though he did know his name: Hamish Garrison. As a kid, Quentin had believed his mother when she told him that Hamish had been an award-winning investigative journalist for the London Times who had been killed in the line of duty while embedded with troops in Iraq. But in truth, he had been a reporter for one of the supermarket tabloids and had met Kate at a bar in Las Vegas while covering the wedding of Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford. She’d admitted that to him nine months ago, when he’d come to visit her in rehab and started asking her questions, taking advantage of her newfound lucidity.

Kate had told him the whole story—insomuch as Quentin’s mother could tell anyone the whole story of anything. Hamish had been thirty-eight years older than Kate, who at the time had been living just off the Strip with no real game plan, just a vague idea about setting up residence in a different state. The Garrisons had married the night they met and stayed together just long enough to conceive Quentin, after which Hamish moved back to his native Britain and reunited with his estranged wife. “Your father gave you one thing,” Kate had said, tears in her eyes. “His curiosity. You’re a born reporter.” She hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

Quentin was in the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, having just found Hamish’s obituary on microfilm, in the August 2, 1996, issue of the Mirror. He liked the cool of the room, the dead, cavelike silence and the location of the library, at the center of a bustling city where he knew no one and no one knew him.

He might stay here forever, he thought. Or at least until no one knew him anywhere anymore.

Quentin finished reading the obituary, his gaze hanging on the last line: Mr. Garrison is survived by Hannah, his wife of 40 years, as well as his two grown sons Mark and Martyn. No mention of Kate, or of Quentin, who at the time of the obituary had been just four years old. Not even a line about a brief sabbatical in Las Vegas.

Quentin heard his mother’s voice in his head, weary and mocking, the way he’d so often heard it in the months following her death.

Seems to me, you’ve lived your life . . .

Quentin’s phone went off in his pocket, drawing a disgusted look from a nearby security guard—the only other person in this cavernous room on such a warm summer day. The sternness in the guard’s eyes, his uniform . . . It spooked Quentin a little.