In 1968, Jo Becker escaped- for one idyllic year- into a life that was bohemian and romantic, living in a rambling group house in Cambridge. A time of limitless possibility ended in a single instant when Jo returned home one night to find her best friend dead in a pool of blood. Now Jo has everything she has ever wanted: a veterinary practice she loves, a devoted husband, three grown daughters, a beautiful Massachusetts farmhouse. If occasionally she feels a stranger to herself and wonders what happened to the freedom she once felt, she need only to look at her daughters or her husband to recall the satisfactions of family, community, and marriage.But when a former housemate settles in her town, Jo begins a flirtation that returns her to the darkest moment of her past and imperils all she loves.While I Was Gone is an exquisitely suspenseful novel about how casually a marriage can be destroyed, how a good wife can place all she holds dear at risk. An extraordinary book from a beloved American writer.