Award-winning author Stacey D'Erasmo tells a haunting and emotionally affecting story about a Ruth Madoff-like woman trying to make sense of her husband's downfall after running a Ponzi scheme, and what she knew—or pretended not to know—about where their family's money came from.
After her husband Alan's financial crimes come to light, Suzanne's wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Ignoring a steady stream of calls from Norfolk State Prison, she tries to cleanse herself of all connections to her ex-husband. She tells herself that he, not she, committed the crimes.
Then Alan is released early from prison, and the many people whose lives he ruined are demanding restitution. But the last of the money went to Suzanne, who, feeling righteous, donates it instead to an oceanic foundation. The consequences of Suzanne's apparently high-minded decision ripple with devastating effect not only through Alan's life as he tries to rebuild, but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan's son, Alan's new wife, his estranged mother, and, ultimately, Suzanne herself.
When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible? How long is the half-life of a crime?
In a story of the complexities surrounding one white-collar criminal, The Complicities examines the ways in which the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves—that we didn't know, we weren't there, we didn't really understand—are also finally stories of our own deep complicity.
