Thomas Christopher Greene Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Thomas Christopher Greene
Thomas Christopher Greene’s fiction has been translated into 11 languages. He was born and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, the sixth of seven kids born to Dolores and Richard Greene. His dad was a college professor (who later became a college president) and his mom taught kindergarten.

Thomas was educated at Worcester public schools before attending Suffield Academy. He earned his BA in Creative Writing and English from Hobart College in Geneva, New York. He also earned his MFA in Writing from Vermont College in Montpelier.

Tom has worked as an oyster shucker, as the director of public affairs for two colleges, in a staple factory, as a professor of literature and writing, and as a spokesperson and speechwriter for a presidential campaign. In 2006, he founded the Vermont College of Fine Arts, which is a top New England arts college, which makes him the youngest college president in America at that time.

“Mirror Lake” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2003. His name is Nathan Carter. Let him just say that even though this story doesn’t concern him, at least not directly, he still feels an obligation to tell it, since it was told to him, and it is just the sort of story that needs to be told.

So starts this powerful story about loss, love, and redemption, pulling us into the tiny town of Eden, Vermont, and into the complicated lives of two incredibly different guys. Nathan Carter is a young man in love with the idea of falling in love. A serial monogamist, he flirts from one woman to the next until, as yet one more relationship disintegrates, he leaves his busy Boston life behind him and heads north to the tiny town of Eden.

Here, he meets Wallace Fiske: a man that is at the end of his life, and someone with a story to tell. And while the gruff and surly Wallace begins telling his story to Nathan—it’s the story of Nora, the woman that he loved from the moment that he first set eyes on her, the tale of the man Wallace once was—the two men become friends. It is a friendship, as well as a story, which will change Nathan forever.

“I’ll Never Be Long Gone” is a stand alone novel and was released in 2005. The lives of Owen and Charlie Bender are changed forever the night that their dad steps into the Vermont woods with a shotgun and a death wish. The second shock comes when his suicide not bequeaths the family’s restaurant to just Charlie alone, while leaving Owen these instructions to follow a path of his own, wherever it might take him.

Years later, and the restaurant’s a success. The void in Charlie’s life, created by the absence of his beloved brother, gets filled finally when this passionate affair becomes a deeply satisfying marriage. And now Owen, prodigal son, returns home, to be welcomed back into the family fold. However the cruel legacy which tore a brotherhood apart created some wounds that aren’t so easily healed. And there must be a reckoning.

“Envious Moon” is a stand alone novel and was released in 2007. This is a harrowing story about the sometimes dark obsession, and often sensual beauty, which accompanies young love. With a nod to Romeo and Juliet and being reminiscent of Endless Love, Thomas tells the story about two young lovers and their quest to find perfection in one another’s arms.

Young Anthony Lopes and his best friend set out from the tiny fishing community, they never imagined that it’d change their lives forever. They expected the mansion on the island bluffs to just be empty. However inside they find a man and Hannah, his daughter. Haunted by her fleeting image and convinced that he can atone for what happens to her dad, Anthony is determined to track her down.

Filled with lyric prose, dazzling narrative drive, and compelling characterizations, this is a highly original, luminous, and riveting story about what it means to love, as well as be loved.

“The Headmaster’s Wife” is a stand alone novel and was released in 2014. Deeply affecting and haunting portrait of one couple at their worst and best. Inspired by a personal loss of his own, Thomas explores the way that time and tragedy assail a man’s memories of his loves and life.

Arthur Winthorp, like his dad before him, is the headmaster of Vermont’s elite Lancaster School. It’s the place that he feels has given him his entire life, however is also the site of his undoing while events spiral out of his control.

Discovered naked while wandering through Central Park, he starts telling his story to the cops, however his memories collide into each other, and the real nature of things, a narrative of marriage, of love, of family, and of a tragedy that Arthur doesn’t even know how to address emerges.

Atmospheric and luminous, bringing to life the tight knit closeness of a quintessential New England boarding school, the book is part love story, part mystery, and exploration of the ties of family and place. The novel stands as a moving elegy to love’s power as an antidote to grief.

“If I Forget You” is a stand alone novel and was released in 2016. Twenty-one years after they were driven apart due to circumstances out of their control, two ex-lovers have this chance encounter on a Manhattan street. What follows is a tense, suspenseful exploration of the many facets of an enduring love.

Told from altering perspectives over time, this tells the story about Margot Fuller (the daughter of a wealthy and prominent family), and Henry Gold (a poet whose rise up from poverty embodies the American dream), and their unlikely, star-crossed love affair. It’s made complete with the secrets that they carry once they find one another for the second time.

Written in lyrical prose, this novel is at once a great story, a novel about marriage, family, and manners. It’s also a meditation on the nature of art how the decisions that we make can alter our lives forever, and a moving elegy to what exactly it means to lose and to love.