Brian DeLeeuw

Witnessing the failure of his parents' marriage, Luke Nightingale succumbs to a mysterious alter ego who makes disturbing observations about the fragile members of his privileged Central Park West family and assumes increasing control over his thoughts.

A Novel

In This Way I Was Saved

Luke is six. He is a lonely child, but he has one friend, his best friend - Daniel - whom he met in the playground on the day his parents finalized their divorce. Only Luke can see Daniel. They play games together and Daniel watches over Luke; he is there when he first wakes up and there when he goes to sleep. Daniel's first memory is of Luke calling his name in the playground. Daniel is not an ordinary child. Luke's mother spends more and more time in her room, haunted by family memories. She takes Luke and Daniel from New York to a deserted beach town, as winter sets in. Daniel is changing. He feels faint, weightless. Luke seems forgetful of him. Time passes. Luke and Daniel have not seen each other for a long time. Until, one night, Daniel suddenly finds himself standing in Luke's bedroom, woken by the sound of breaking glass. He does not know how much time he has, but he knows how he can be saved.

A frightening, gripping tale. This is one of the most fascinating and controlled first novels I've ever read - a sustained performance that hypnotizes and terrifies -- Edmund White.

Original subversive, funny, twisted, and toatlly engrossing ... a mind-bending tour de force. I read the last page, flipped back to the beginning, and immediately started it again. -- Chelsea Cain.

The relationship between Daniel and Luke is unique in the annals of literature. I haven't been this entertained by a debut novel in years -- Dale Peck.

In this way I was saved

Now a major motion picture! A breathtaking debut of literary suspense about a young boy’s struggle against his inner demons—a fight to the death against his secret shadow self. On a chilly November afternoon, six-year-old Luke Nightingale’s life changes forever. On the playground across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he encounters Daniel. Soon the boys are hiding from dinosaurs and shooting sniper rifles. Within hours, Luke and his mother, Claire, are welcoming Daniel into their Upper East Side apartment—and their lives. Daniel and Luke are soon inseparable. With his parents divorcing, Luke takes comfort in having a near-constant playmate. But there’s something strange about Daniel, who is more than happy to bind himself to the Nightingales. The divorce has cut Luke’s father out of the picture, and as his increasingly fragile mother struggles with the insidious family depression, Daniel—shrewd, adventurous, and insightful—provides Luke both recreation and refuge. As Luke grows from a child to an adolescent to a young man, he realizes that as much as his mother needs him, Daniel needs him more. Jealous of Luke’s other attachments, Daniel moves from gestures of friendship into increasingly sinister manipulations. In the end, Luke finds himself in a daily battle for control of his own life—wondering whether he or Daniel will emerge victorious. Brian DeLeeuw’s debut is a haunting and provocative story of a family’s love and madness that you will not be able to put down. *This title was previously published as In This Way I Was Saved.

Daniel Isn't Real

How much of yourself are you willing to sell? At twenty-five, Simon Worth is a med school dropout, facing the grim reality of failure and massive student loans. Left with few options, he becomes an organ broker for a black-market organization, matching cash-strapped donors with recipients whose time on the transplant list is running out. Tasked with finding a donor for Lenny Pellegrini, a severely depressed ex-NFL player who’s been drinking himself to death, Simon’s luck appears to change when he’s contacted by Maria Campos, a young woman desperate for cash whose liver happens to be the perfect match. The transplant goes according to plan . . . until soon afterward, when Maria disappears and Lenny makes a cruel and destructive decision. As Simon’s world becomes increasingly dangerous, he learns of an unspeakable secret from Maria’s past and must decide, against his better moral judgment, that the only way he’ll survive is to trust her. Chilling and fast-paced, The Dismantling questions the meaning of atonement and asks how you can reconcile the person you once were—and the person you want to be—with the person you are today.

Brian DeLeeuw

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