Hostages to Fortune

A father bravely confronts an unthinkable tragedyin William Humphrey’s most heart-wrenching novel. In the aftermath of his son’s suicide, Ben Curtis returns to the upstate New York fishing lodge that holds some of his happiest memories. It has been two years since his last visit, and Ben—thirty pounds lighter, his dark hair turned white—is barely recognizable to people who have fished alongside him for twenty summers. For the first time in all those years, he has made the trip alone.   Over the course of the weekend, as Ben tramps through the forest and relearns the secrets of catching trout, he recalls the joys of the past and reckons with the grim reality of the present. Anthony, a Princeton freshman who inherited his father’s love of the outdoors, is gone. So too is the man he was named after: Tony Thayer, Ben’s best friend and former fishing companion. And Ben has no idea where his wife, Cathy, might be. In the wake of Anthony’s death, their already-strained marriage fell apart. Where does a man turn when everything he put his faith in—friends, family, love—is destroyed? In the exhilaration of fly casting into an icy mountain stream, Ben hopes to find the answer. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a desperate, impressive, astonishing book,” Hostages to Fortune is a profound and deeply moving meditation on the art of survival.   This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Humphrey including rare photos form the author’s estate.