A big new American novel for our times, by the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Empire Falls, about innocence and cynicism, optimism and despair, mining the secrets of society and the human heart in a rich, dramatic and big-hearted story of families and growing up, and the secrets which define a community - rich, sinuous and surprising, with new and darker undercurrents.

Richard Russo won a Pulitzer Prize for his previous novel Empire Falls, which has been made into an HBO tv series starring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Helen Hunt. He is also the author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool and Straight Man, as well as a collection of stories, The Whore's Child. He has collaborated with Robert Benton on the screenplays for Nobody's Fool and Twilight. His original screenplay is the basis for Rowan Atkinson's film Keeping Mum, with Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas. He lives in Maine.