Pursuit by Joyce Carol Oates

Abby has just met and married the man of her dreams.  But as her wedding fast approaches she begins to feel as if she does not deserve to be happy.  She finds herself having confusing nightmares about skeletons and awful feelings of dread.

Then, less than 24 hours after she has married, Abby steps off and is hit by a bus causing her to almost die. As her husband Willem sits lovingly by her side and waits for her to wake up, he can’t help but wonder if his wife accidentally or intentionally caused the accident.

Abby refuses to answer this question, but as she grows stronger and she begins to see Willem’s true love for her, she starts to reveal truths she has kept hidden since her childhood. Willem makes the decision that in order for Abby to completely heal, they must go back to her childhood town and revisit what happened.

It is then that Abby must confront the abuses she and her mother endured many years ago at the hands of her father.

Oates has once again written an intense psychological horror story with a narrative which goes back to the past and then to the present and with an ending which although is quite sad, if filled with hope.

Pursuit is a haunting tale of abuse, murder and salvation.