I heartily recommend The Drama Teacher if you are not tired of all the new books that seem to hang their respective hats on the damaged, unreliable narrator who manages to rise above it all and recover some lost element of her life. This novel takes that plot device and turns it on its head ... The Drama Teacher is in part a cautionary tale for our times.
In this mesmerizing if disturbing thriller from bestseller Zailckas, con artist Gracie Mueller manages to save herself and her two young children from the brink of bankruptcy in New York’s rural Hudson Valley after real estate agent Randy, the man she has duped into thinking they’re married, gets into financial trouble ... Assuming and shedding identities like a snake would its skin, Gracie somehow contrives to stay a half-step ahead of disaster, albeit not always believably. But while she may escape unscathed, her actions often wreak devastating collateral damage. Fascinated readers will keep turning the pages.
Gracie is haunted by fragmented memories of a past that has shaped and molded her into a chameleon. She learned from two of the best con artists in the business, her first husband and her father ... The Drama Teacher, with a film adaptation coming from Fox, is a masterful psychological thriller. Readers will laugh at Gracie's hijinks and marvel at her audacity. What makes Zailckas such an exciting writer to watch is her way of presenting women with all their flaws and courage to keep trying to get to the truth.
