Conrad & Eleanor

From the multi-award-winning and critically acclaimed author of The Testament of Jessie Lamb comes this riveting novel about the devastating secrets revealed in the midst of a disintegrating marriage.
When Conrad fails to return from a conference, Eleanor wonders if it is because of the affair she is having. Or maybe it is because his research into transgenic monkey hearts is stalling; perhaps he is sick of having the less successful career of the two of them. She is a leading expert in stem cell research. Their grown-up children suspect Eleanor of murdering their father; El secretly fears that what has driven Con away is his discovery of their daughter Cara’s parentage.
While his family in Manchester, England, scrabbles for clues and reasons, Conrad—alone, confused, and on the run from a crazed animal rights activist—loses himself in the cold foggy streets of Bologna. He revisits the stages of his long marriage to El, from the happiness of the year of Cara’s birth to the grief and anger he now feels. Both partners are forced to reexamine their relationship and, in the process, to move closer to an understanding of what it is that matters most to each of them.
Conrad and Eleanor is a radical, remarkably nuanced look at marriage.

“The thriller plot does its job by making the slow-burn conflicts of their marriage flare up dramatically…It also adds a kind of Roth-like energy and unpredictability to Rogers’s very English virtues as a writer: a sharp eye, a good ear and a strong sense of the nuances of class.” — Ben Markovits, New York Times Book Review
“An extraordinary novel…about the unraveling of a marriage. Rogers writes with delicacy and insight about the death throes of a long relationship…This is a dissection of a relationship that cuts to the bone.” — The Times (London)
“Brilliantly done—a sustained exploration of the polarities at the enduring heart of love…In its every cell this remarkable novel reproduces the dialectic of a long marriage.” — The Guardian
“A really clever, reflective and dispassionate scrutiny of a marriage in trouble.” — Daily Mail (London)
“A nuanced, pragmatic look at the long-married state…The novel’s strengths are the author’s intelligence, her avoidance of sentimentality, and the honest scrutiny she brings to bear on how intimate adult relationships age and settle.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Rogers deftly explores the complexity of a long marriage between two complicated individuals in this smart, insightful outing.” — Booklist
“Her observation of our species is tender, precise, illuminating.” — Hilary Mantel, author of WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES
“Warm, wise, insightful, sharply observed and beautifully written.” — Marina Lewycka, author of A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN