First published 2025
Steven Mills stands at his own breaking point. His wife and son have walked away, leaving him alone with questions about his own childhood. His father, a magnetic professor, vanished in disgrace when Steven was twelve years old. Now Steven gets in his car and heads up the California coast. He tracks down his father's old friends, family members, and colleagues from the university. Each conversation pulls him deeper into memories of backyard movie nights and legendary pool parties. His father's former life emerges in fragments. But the more Steven learns, the less he recognizes the man who raised him. The search forces Steven to examine his own failures and the ways his father's absence shaped him. Every revelation about the past demands a reckoning with the present. Steven must decide whether understanding his father can help him save his own family.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller, family-drama
Vibes: character-driven, contemplative, emotionally-complex, introspective, melancholic
Tropes: reckoning-with-the-past, road-trip, unreliable-memory
Setting: California Coast
Period: Contemporary
288 pages · Paperback · Europa Editions