The Anger Meridian

"The Anger Meridian is an impossible-to-put-down book. Kaylie Jones is a master storyteller, and this is her best one yet."
--Ann Hood, author of An Italian Wife

"The Anger Meridian is a sexy, sleek page-turner. Uncertain Merryn loses her husband in an unsavory accident--and her first instinct is to flee. She gathers her beloved hyper-allergic daughter and a teddy bear full of cash and races across the border to her mother's house in the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende. But Merryn feels the noose tightening as her flamboyant, overbearing mother begins to threaten and the FBI closes in. Jones deftly weaves together a thriller, a family drama, a romance, and a story of self-awakening in this taut, suspenseful, and beautiful novel."
--Taylor Polites, author of The Rebel Wife

"Kaylie Jones has written a narrative that ingeniously marries the atmosphere of the longtime outpost of American expats in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with a narrator who lives in so much denial that she creates her own magic realism. And the mother, a living nightmare, is too awful to be true, and too true not to believe. The characters in this book made me laugh, drop my jaw in outrage, nod in acknowledgment, and then they hung around long after I turned the last page."
--Beverly Donofrio, author of Astonished: A Story of Healing and Finding Grace

Praise for Kaylie Jones:

"Although we've gotten used to second-generation actors equaling or surpassing the accomplishments of their parents, the same hasn't happened with second-generation novelists. Nonetheless there are a few, and added to their small number ought to be Kaylie Jones."
--New York Times

Merryn Huntley is rudely awakened to the many bad decisions she has made in her life when she is told by two Dallas police officers that her wealthy husband Beau has been killed in a car accident, along with a local waitress. Merryn's first instinct is to flee in order to protect her nine-year-old daughter, and the only place that feels safe enough is her mother's beautiful, isolated home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Merryn's mother, the redoubtable Bibi, always said to her as a child, When you tell a lie, make sure you keep it as close to the truth as possible, because it will be easier to remember. Ironically, from the moment Merryn arrives, she is forced into twisting the truth--about how much she knew of her husband and his shady business affairs; about her own secret lovers; and most importantly, that she is beginning to doubt the one person who has always been the greatest influence in her life: her mother.

The situation worsens when two FBI agents show up and begin to ask Merryn questions about her husband's business, which only intensifies her need to continue lying. While Merryn's perfect life begins to crumble around her, she must decide whether or not she can face the most painful reality of all--that she has been lying to herself her entire life.

Kaylie Jones has published six books, the most recent a memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me. Her novelA Soldier's Daughter Never Cries was adapted as a Merchant Ivory film in 1998. Jones has been teaching for more than twenty-five years, and is a faculty member in the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Creative Writing & Literature program and in Wilkes University's MFA in Creative Writing program. She is the author of Speak Now and the editor ofLong Island Noir. Her newest endeavor is her publishing imprint with Akashic Books, Kaylie Jones Books.