An earnest…debut novel of ideas. This historical why-dunit…carries some real emotional weight.
Kirkus Reviews
Self-Deliverance is a novel that touches upon the historical and fictional/imaginative lives of its fascinating characters. Otterman writes with authority and elegance and this book has it all-desire, love, illness, intrigue, loss. Yet nothing here is gratuitous. The prose is descriptive and lovingly wrought.
Martha Rhodes, Founding Editor and Director of Four Way Books
Arthur Koestler slouched in his living room armchair, dead with a whiskey glass in his hand. His wife Cynthia was found lying lifeless on the sofa, facing him. Two empty wine glasses, a jar of honey, and an empty bottle of Tuinal-a powerful sedative-stood between them on the coffee table. Double-suicide was suspected, but Westminster Court Coroner Jack Candrel was troubled. Why did Cynthia, twenty-five years younger than Arthur and in good health, kill herself?
A bold work of historical fiction, Self-Deliverance: The Death and Life of Arthur Koestler, explores the circumstances and unexpected consequences of the real-life Koestler suicides. At the heart of the book is a love story, not just of Arthur and his much-younger wife, but of the lead investigator Jack, who’s in a long and increasingly loveless marriage, and Kristie, a world-class ballerina and estranged daughter of Arthur Koestler. Rita, the assisting investigator, and Frankel, a journalist looking into the double-suicide, also develop a passionate, yet combustible, affair.
Otterman’s work taps into the heart of loneliness, isolation, and the pitfalls of marriage. His book is not so much one of romance, but of the mind games that unfold for the participants. Sex, love, and intimacy take on new meanings as the Koestler investigation deepens-and the role love plays in death and life is unearthed.
