Swallow the ghost

Jane Murphy works for a start-up where she comes up with a brilliant viral marketing campaign for Jeremy Miller's upcoming second novel, which revolves around the disappearance of a young woman. Jane's complex campaign involves the creation of multiple Twitter accounts for the novel's characters, drawing real-life people into the mystery even before the book is published. Jane, who is grappling with an eating disorder and general ennui from the repetitiveness of daily life, waffles between an attraction to Jeremy, whom she starts casually seeing, and a handsome jogger whose path she crosses every morning. Things take a shocking and tragic turn when an actual murder occurs. The second section of the novel follows introspective and observant Jesse, an aspiring journalist turned investigator for a firm Jeremy hires to clear himself of suspicion. The final section explores Jeremy's reaction to the murder and his own role as a suspect in it. Montague's debut is a meditative exploration of the disconnection and isolation of modern life as well as a compelling literary mystery.

In this bold and bewitching debut, Montague explores the complex construction of public and private identities in three interlocking narratives. The first part comprises a deceptively traditional mystery centered on burned-out marketer Jane Murphy, who's building buzz for the next novel from experimental crime author Jeremy Miller by managing multiple fake social media accounts that tell the story of a fictional girl's disappearance. After Jane is murdered, Montague's story morphs into a true crime pastiche narrated by the PI investigating her death, who's wrestling with an identity crisis brought on by his career change from journalist to detective. In the final section, Miller describes his life after Jane's death--including the ways he dealt with rumors that he killed her--in a podcast interview, which shrewdly transforms him from secondary character to self-obsessed protagonist and underscores the novel's themes about the slipperiness of self-conception. Montague navigates the perspective switches with prose so distinctive that each segment feels almost as if it were written by a different author, which makes for thrilling reading while enhancing the narrative's Rashomon-like structure. The result is a brain-teasing triumph that will reward multiple readings. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Aug.)