Read an extract from We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart

Allen & Unwin
2 days ago
4 min read

Check out the latest novel by E. Lockhart set in the We Were Liars universe.

Matilda arrives at her long-lost artist father's isolated seaside compound to find him missing, a mansion in neglect, and three teenage boys whose dark secrets might hold the key to her own family saga.

And everyone here is lying...

Read on for an extract from #1 New York Times bestselling author E. Lockhart's latest thrilling YA contemporary novel set in the world of TikTok sensation We Were Liars. Filled with Lockhart's signature beachy gothic atmosphere, family intrigue, and high stakes romance, this is We Fell Apart.

My name is Matilda Avalon Klein. I am the only child of Isadora Hirschel Klein.

My mother escaped her parents pretty young. They told her she was worthless and she disagreed. She spoke to them as little as possible when they were alive. It was better to keep away, and now they’re gone.

She and I have always been a family of two.

If I asked about a dad, Isadora told me we were better off without him and left it at that. The details never seemed important.

Then, midway through the summer after I graduate high school, my father introduces himself by email:

Matilda,

This is Kingsley Cello. I am an artist. I am your father.

I know I have never been in your life, but I’d like to change that.

There is a painting I want to give you. Please come see me at Hidden Beach for a visit.

I never even knew my father’s name until today. And maybe I should hate this guy Kingsley for never being around, for whatever he did to Isadora. But instead, his stilted note makes the world begin to hum.

Think of it like: You unlock a secret level you never even imagined was in a game. It’s an invitation to go in an unexpected direction. Today, I am invited to a hidden beach. Waiting there for me is the father I never thought I’d meet.

When I search for him online, I realize the level I’ve unlocked is massive. Kingsley Cello is just about as famous as a living painter gets. There are hundreds of hits: articles in fancy-sounding art magazines and reviews of solo exhibits at major museums.

Here are questions the search engine pops up when I look for his name:

What is Kingsley Cello best known for? Controversial neoclassical paintings. (I have no clue what that even means.)

What is important about Kingsley Cello? The artist’s dark vision and fairy tale interpretations have influenced many other artists.

What was the scandal about Kingsley Cello? In his 2012 Whitney Museum show, Cello’s extremely violent painting, Prince of Denmark, enraged critics.

Where does Kingsley Cello live? The reclusive artist does not disclose his place of residence.

I search dollar value of Kingsley Cello paintings. They average two million dollars.

I text my mother: I got this email from Kingsley Cello.

She texts back right away: Hm.

I wait, but she doesn’t write more. Hm what? I ask, after a few minutes.

Not a great guy.

What kind of not great? I press.

Just not. Why is he reaching out?

What’s he like?

Strange, she writes. Obsessive. Wounded.

He’s my father, I write back. No answer from Isadora.

Is he my father? I write. He says he’s my father.

No answer.

HELLO IS HE MY FATHER BECAUSE HE SAYS HE IS.

Hold on, she texts. I’m at a fruit stand.

YOUR FRUIT IS NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW JUST TYPE YES OR NO.

Yes. Then she adds another text: I didn’t think he knew where I was. And another. Did he ask about me?

I ignore her and read some more about Kingsley online. The art magazine articles are filled with phrases like grandly sordid imagination and the enfant terrible of twenty-first-century neoclassicism. The story from Wikipedia is that Cello burst onto the art scene in what was probably his late twenties. (He gives different birth dates to nearly every interviewer.) He never admits to attending art school and first attracted attention with a New York pop-up exhibition in a warehouse space rented for him by an anonymous patron.

His early paintings were considered audacious. They show women (and occasionally men) laughing. Some figures are in baths or showers. Some are watching television or cooking dinner or doing some other mundane activity. None of them wear clothes. The articles chronicle his rise to fame as a critical darling, but later he became a controversial figure. He started making work with classical literature and fairy tale references. Some people say Kingsley “eroticizes suffering” and others think his work is “juvenile and needlessly violent.”

He never brings journalists to his studio and seems to do all his interviews sitting on park benches in different cities, mostly managing not to reveal much about himself at all. He says he’s American but was raised in Italy by a strict and horrific grandmother. He also says that he grew up in a hardscrabble town in the Midwest.

And that he spent his youth in a Swedish tuberculosis sanatorium.

And that he was raised by queer fishermen in Alaska.

I flip through some of his most famous paintings online. Turbulent seas, burned forests, monsters, nudes, people in contemporary clothing confronting fairy tale creatures, castles crumbling, animals transforming into people. They’re beautiful and disturbing at the same time.

Then I’m looking at a painting of my mother.

Extracted from We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart

available now.