First published 2002
Anton Furey's family gathers around his deathbed twenty years after the turmoil that once tore them apart. The dying therapist watches as his relatives attempt to heal old wounds and forge new connections before time runs out. His family members circle each other warily, their relationships still fragile from past conflicts. They want to make things right with Anton and with one another, but decades of accumulated hurt make every conversation a minefield. The house fills with unspoken grievances and tentative gestures toward forgiveness. Each family member carries their own version of their shared history, their own catalog of slights and disappointments. As Anton's condition worsens, the urgency to resolve these tensions grows. The family discovers that making peace requires confronting truths they have long avoided. Their efforts to reconcile become both a race against time and a reckoning with the choices that shaped their fractured relationships.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, relationships, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, race-against-time
336 pages · Hardcover · Harcourt
Content warnings: mental-illness