Although some parts were interesting, this book was very confusing in parts, I assume to give the reader a sense of the inner mind of someone with mental illness. In the end, it was just too depressing. The message seemed to be that, not only is a person with mental illness doomed to a miserable, hopeless life, but he drags his entire family into the abyss.

If you prefer literary fiction to plain ol’ fiction, you can’t do much better than Adam Haslett. And if you would be happy to find modern-day literature that can hold its own with the old masters, again, Haslett’s writing does that. His IMAGINE ME GONE is “literature of the highest order,” as Peter Carey said.

You might be put off, though, by too much detail. It may seem sometimes that, although Haslett goes on and on, the storyline is not advanced.

That storyline involves a family, including a father, John, with mental problems and his eldest son, Michael, who inherited them. Also included are the mother, a daughter, and another son. The thoughts and feelings of each of these characters are contained in alternate chapters.

IMAGINE ME GONE is one of those books without much action (which I think of as story). Instead, it’s a thoughts-and-feelings kind of book. Although you will, at some point, realize that most thoughts and feelings are either directly or indirectly about Michael, all the great detail makes it tempting to skip paragraphs.

I might have stopped reading IMAGINE ME GONE when I was only halfway through if it hadn’t been my book club’s selection this month. If I hadn’t read the last half, though, I would have missed explanations for each family member’s behavior, particularly Michael’s.