A Novel

New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the Edgar Award 2014 for Best Novel
Winner of the Dilys Award 2014
A Best Book of the School Library Journal 2013

"That was it. That was everything. Such an ordinary grace that there was no reason to remember it. Yet in the forty years since, I have not forgotten a single word."

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were sold out at the soda counter of Halderson's drugstore, and Hot Stuff comics were a staple in every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum, it was a grim summer, where death frequently visited and took many forms: accident, nature, suicide, murder.

Frank begins the season with the worries of any teenager, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family – which includes his Methodist pastor father, his passionate artistic mother, his Juilliard-bound older sister, and his wise younger brother who has matured beyond his years – he suddenly finds himself in an adult world full of secrets, lies, infidelity, and betrayal, and is called to show a maturity and determination far beyond his age.

Told from Frank's perspective, forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy on the brink of adulthood trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.