by Irving, John
First published 2009
Twelve-year-old Daniel Baciagalupo lives with his father in a remote logging settlement in northern New Hampshire in 1954. One night in the cookhouse, the anxious boy sees a figure in the darkness and mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. The tragic error kills the woman and transforms Daniel and his cook father into fugitives. The constable begins a relentless pursuit that will span five decades and stretch from Coos County to Boston, southern Vermont, and Toronto. Their only ally is a libertarian logger and former river driver who helps them escape. As the years pass, the chase becomes a meditation on violence, hatred, and the ways people enter and leave our lives. Irving follows father and son through their long exile, showing how one moment of terror shapes everything that follows. The constable's pursuit never ends, turning their existence into a permanent flight from the past. This is a story about how we know each other and lose each other, sometimes as suddenly as people fall from the sky.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Boston, Coos County, New Hampshire, Southern Vermont, Toronto
Period: 1954, Five Decades
554 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: violence