Crossways

A woman returns home to South Africa to mourn her sister’s death—only to discover disturbing truths about her brother-in-law in this literary thriller.

Kate Kempden was living in Paris as a book translator, far from her past life—and family—in Johannesburg when tragedy forced her to return. Her sister Marion has been killed in a car accident, leaving her three young children in the care of Kate’s mother until their father, heart surgeon Louis Marais, recovers from his crash injuries.

Grief-stricken, Kate recalls how close she and Marion once were before Louis entered their lives, and how much her sister sacrificed for her husband. Their marriage was far from perfect, and Kate helped Marion cope with Louis’s mood swings. Now Kate finds herself questioning the “accident,” knowing just how unpredictable and dangerous Louis can be, fearing for the lives of her nieces and nephew . . .

“There is a territory—fictional and psychological—that Sheila Kohler has now marked as her own. I am full of admiration.” —J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize–winning author

“Gripping . . . terrifying.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“[A] hypnotic book—a combination of domestic drama and psychological thriller . . . hinting at unsettling secrets and later revealing them.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Upon matriculation at seventeen, she left for Europe. Kohler lived for fifteen years in Paris, where she got married and completed an undergraduate degree in literature at the Sorbonne and a graduate degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique. After raising her three children, she moved to the United States in 1981 and earned an MFA in writing at Columbia.
 
Kohler has taught at The Writer’s Voice, SUNY Purchase, Sarah Lawrence, Colgate, CCNY, Bennington, Columbia, and Princeton.