by Lorrie Moore
First published 2024
A teacher travels to the Bronx to see his dying brother. During his visit, he encounters a mysterious journal from the 1800s that someone stole from a boarding house. The pages reveal connections between past and present that blur the boundaries of time itself. Two figures emerge from the shadows of the story: a therapy clown and an assassin, both believed to be dead yet somehow still present. As the teacher reads deeper into the journal, he must confront questions about love, loss, and what remains when people vanish from our lives. The narrative moves between centuries, weaving together siblings and lovers across time. Moore crafts a story where the living and the dead occupy the same spaces, where grief transforms into something unexpected, and where the pull toward life persists even in the face of endings.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: blurred-boundaries, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Bronx
Period: 1800s
208 pages · Paperback · Vintage