Adam Haslett crafts a sweeping American drama about the long legacy of mental illness, the bonds of kinship, and the limits of love
Michael is John and Margaret's eldest son. He's a precocious kid, smart and funny, obsessed with books and music. Even while he's still very young, he finds himself at odds with his father in ways neither one quite understands.
His sister Celia is the sensible one in the family: tougher than the boys, unshakeably certain about how the world works, desperate to impress her dad.
And then there's Alec, the youngest, the most ambitious and also the most sensitive. He grows up in the shadow of Michael's distant coolness and Celia's pragmatic confidence, never quite understanding his father's strange games or keeping up with the others.
The children are still living at home when their brilliant, beloved father walks into the woods by their house and take his own life. Years later, when they are adults, one of them will follow him.
How are we damaged by what we are born into - by those we love or who have loved us? How much can any family give to save one of its own? And how can you tell the difference between what is passed on and what is simply imitated or learned by habit - between the truly inherited flaw and the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Weaving together the voices of five family members, Adam Haslett imagines how a single isolated tragedy can become the event that defines many lives, unfolding a rich and painful novel that has all the makings of an American classic.
