The Winner

A New York Times Book Review and Washington Post "Top-10 Thriller of the Year" A New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Elle, and Bookshop.org "Best Book of the Year" Conor O’Toole has never been anywhere like Cutters Neck, a wealthy gated community near Cape Cod. It’s a sweet deal for the summer: in exchange for tennis lessons, he receives free lodging in a luxurious guest cottage, far from the cramped Yonkers apartment he shares with his diabetic mother. In this oceanfront paradise, however, new clients prove hard to come by, and Conor has bills to pay. When Catherine, a sharp-tongued divorcée, offers double his usual rate for an arrangement that includes off-the-court services, Conor tumbles into a secret, psychological affair with an older woman, unlike anything he’s experienced before. Despite the steamy age gap arrangement, he simultaneously finds himself falling for an artsy, outspoken girl he meets on the beach. In this suspense novel of dark secrets, Conor somehow manages his tangled web—until he makes one final, irreversible mistake. A dark, explosive literary thriller that brilliantly skewers the elite, Whiting Award winner Teddy Wayne’s unputdownable novel is cinematic, shocking, and a psychological masterpiece.