by Richard Ford
First published 2012
Dell Parsons watches his world collapse when his parents decide to rob a bank. At fifteen, he faces a future split between before and after this single devastating act. His parents go to prison. His twin sister Berner runs away, angry and abandoned. Dell finds himself alone until a family friend smuggles him across the border into Saskatchewan. There, on the Canadian prairie, he meets Arthur Remlinger, an American exile who takes him in. Remlinger appears calm and controlled, but Dell gradually discovers the violence beneath his surface. As Dell tries to understand what his parents have done and who they really were, he moves closer to danger. The boy who lost his family to one crime now faces another that will test everything he believes about survival and belonging.
Genres: literary-fiction, crime, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Saskatchewan, Canada, United States
Period: 20th-century
432 pages · Kindle Edition · Ecco
Content warnings: violence