The award-winning author of The End of Vandalism pens "a gorgeous, inexplicably sad and funny novel about screwups trying to do better" ( Salon). In this mesmerizing novel, Tom Drury once again journeys 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; 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, aided by prowling the empty town at night; and for Joan's daughter, Lyris, a stable foot from which to begin to grow up. Sometimes together, sometimes crucially apart, 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. "A beguiling novel . . . perceptive and captivating." — The New York Times "Entrancing." — The Guardian "Startling and utterly original." — Newsday "Drury is an absolutely delightful writer who has carved out a world of his own in American fiction, one that is odd, revealing, and yet filled with love." — Library Journal "The trick and true pleasure here are in the utterly ordinary context these extraordinary events occur in. Drury never misses a beat—the quiet moments dazzle as much the louder ones." — Kirkus Reviews
