Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards 2017 and a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this novel was also named one of Time's Top Ten Novels of 2016. It might be the best American novel about a middle-class family since Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," according to the Independent. The Sunday Times describes it as "exceptional, haunting, distinctive," resembling the work of Anne Tyler by intertwining grief and love in an intimate and panoramic way. Peter Carey calls it "dreadfully sad and hilariously funny," labeling it literature of the highest order.

This universal and essential story follows an ordinary American family shaped by tragedy. Michael's father walked into the woods one day and out of his family's life forever. Yet, Michael and his brother and sister view it less as a tragedy in their past and more as a forewarning of the future. For Michael—smart, brilliant, and so alive and vital—feels the darkness that drew their father away.