A lonely wife, an unfaithful husband, an awkward son, and his tutor…
Heaven and Other Zip Codes follows the complicated relationships between lonely, thirty-something-year-old mother Searcy, her awkward prepubescent son Theo, cheating husband and disingenuous stepfather Hoit, and young, attractive, painter-turned-after-school-tutor Emerson. When anonymous letters accusing Hoit of infidelity start to arrive on the doorstep, Searcy develops feelings toward Emerson, and the family begins to fracture in the sunny Southern California suburb they call home. Will Searcy and Emerson act upon their feelings? Will Hoit’s adulterous exploits come back to haunt him? Will the boys at school stop bullying Theo? And where exactly is the location of Heaven and Other Zip Codes?
This contemporary novel explores family, guilt, manipulation, betrayal, and love.
A lonely wife, an unfaithful husband, an awkward son, and his tutor…
“Beautifully crafted with incredible range, Heaven and Other Zip Codes gives us an older and more soulful Holden Caulfield in protagonist Emerson Toffler. With lows “as deep as the Titanic’s stemware…and ups Kilimanjaro-like”, readers will fall in love this page-turning, brilliant novel.”
—Niles Reddick author of the Pulitzer-nominated Drifting too far from the Shore
“Heaven and Other Zip Codes is a bittersweet love story crowded with all-too-human failings, and Cailler’s easy and poised prose gives us complex yet knowable characters to care about. The final zip code may not be heaven, but it’s still an endearing and heartfelt place.”
—Kali White VanBaale, author of The Monsters We Make and The Good Divide
“Heaven and Other Zip Codes will insist you love it… it will wrap and seduce you into its heart, with a story centering around love, art, intuition, and the messiness of it all.”
—Susan Solomon, Editor of Sleet Magazine
“With clear and empathetic prose, Heaven and Other Zip Codes examines familial guilt and romantic passion. The secret lives of Cailler’s characters reflect conflicts between what we want and what we owe the people we love. At times heartbreaking, at times bittersweet and even funny, Cailler searches the complexities of everyday affairs in this deeply moving novel.”
—Donald Quist, author of Harbors and For Other Ghosts
“Cailler mines the depths of the human heart.” —Cheryl Wright-Watkins, Essayist
“Mathieu Cailler draws his small cast of characters with such precision and soulfulness you immediately invest in them, then he sets them down in a world of unimaginable sorrow and unpredictable joy. Is it any wonder the results are unforgettable? Part love story, part mystery, part psychological thriller, Heaven and Other Zip Codes somehow feels both perfectly contemporary and deliciously old-fashioned. It’s the kind of novel you want to curl up with for hours on a rainy afternoon. Or any afternoon.”
—Margaret Evans, Editor at Lowcountry Weekly
“Heaven and Other Zip Codes is peopled with flawed, confused, tender, angry, loving, hopeful humans struggling to navigate moral quandaries. More than love or lust, the need to create family drives this story of connections broken and mended, made and missed. Mathieu Cailler’s most memorable creation is young Theo who must survive seventh grade as well as his parents’ infidelities. Cailler’s compassion for his characters shines, as does his uncanny ability to evoke the everyday details of life – how things look, smell and feel; the gestures people make; the things they witness out the window or under their feet as they go about their pained and joyous lives.”
—Laurie Alberts, author of A Well-Made Bed (with Abby Frucht) and Between Revolutions: an American Romance with Russia
“Packed with raw emotion, Heaven and Other Zip Codes is a story about the tremendous bravery it takes to choose happiness and follow your heart.”
—Racquel Henry, author of Holiday on Park
“Heaven & Other Zip Codes sits squarelyat the intersection of rich, fully alive characters and masterful narration. Cailler is a deft craftsman who understands love and loss, humor and despair. In the end, the characters’ frailties and triumphs leave us gratified, yet wishing the journey didn’t have to end.”
—Tim Antonides, author of Rain