Synopses & Reviews
In this "perceptive and captivating" (New York Times) novel, Tom Drury returns to the quiet Midwest to spend an action-packed October weekend in the lives of a precarious family whose members all want something without knowing how to get it: for Charles, an heirloom shotgun he will do anything to obtain; for his wife, Joan, the imaginative life she once knew; for their young son, Micah, a knowledge of the scope and reliability of his world, gained by prowling the empty town at night; and for Joan's daughter, Lyris, a stable footing from which to begin to grow up. Sometimes together, sometimes independently, father, mother, son, and daughter move through a series of vivid encounters that demonstrate how even the most provisional family can endure in its own particular way.
About the Author
Tom Drury's fiction has appeared in THE NEW YORKER, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, and the MISSISSIPPI REVIEW. His previous novels are THE END OF VANDALISM and THE BLACK BROOK. One of GRANTA'S "Best Young American Novelists," Drury was raised in Iowa and lives with his wife and their daughter in Connecticut.