Known Quantity

Temptthe gods with smug selfrighteousness and they will deliver a windfall of tragedy, as witnessed in Jean Hanff Korelitz's rollickingly good literary thriller, You Should Have Known (Grand Central). Grace Reinhart Sachs is living her dream in the ivorytower world of upper Manhattan. She's a celebrated couples therapist, married to the love of her life, Jonathan—a doctor— and has a son, who attends her elite private-school alma mater. (This pleases her, although she finds the other mothers tedious.) And she's about to publish a much-buzzed-about selfhelp book, You Should Have Known, that says women who delude themselves about their man's true nature are to blame for the destruction of their relationships. When Grace begins lecturing a female reporter, the clouds of misfortune start gathering. Once the YOU mother of a scholarship student is murdered, and Jonathan, away at a medical conference, is suddenly unreachable, Grace is forced to recognize a truth she doesn't want to know. Korelitz writes intimately and engagingly about a social strata few are privy to, but the ugliness is very familiar.

E. S.