The Ninth Life of Louis Drax

Book excerpt: The Ninth Life of Louis Drax packs an irresistibly twisted wallop . . . An exhilarating, darkly inventive read. -Elle Now a major feature film starring Jamie Dornan and Aaron Paul Nine-year-old Louis Drax is a problem child: bright, precocious, deceitful, and dangerously accident-prone. Every year something violent seems to happen to him. His psychologist is baffled, and his mother lives in constant panic. He has always managed to survive-to land on his feet, like a cat. But cats have only nine lives, and Louis has used up eight, one for every year.. When he falls off a cliff during a picnic, the accident seems almost predestined. Louis miraculously survives-but the family has been shattered. Louis' father has vanished, his mother is in shock, and Louis lies in a deep coma from which he may never emerge. In a renowned coma clinic, a specialist tries to coax Louis back to consciousness. But the boy defies medical logic, startling the doctor out of his safe preconceptions, and drawing him inexorably into the dark heart of Louis' buried world. Only Louis holds the key to the mystery surrounding his fall-and he can't communicate. Or can he? The Ninth Life of Louis Drax is the story of a family falling apart, told in the vivid voices of its comatose son and Dr. Dannachet as he is drawn into the Draxes' circle. Full of astonishing twists and turns, this is a masterful tale of the secrets the human mind can hide.