First published 1965
Stanley Waltz hauls pianos for a living and quotes H.L. Mencken to anyone who will listen. This Polish American atheist has two problems: his wife keeps dragging their son Tom to gospel missions, and Stanley's own reasoning sounds better in his head than it does out loud. When his wife refuses to abandon her soul-saving mission, Stanley finds comfort with a mistress who appreciates his wit. Years later, Tom has grown into an English professor as confused about faith as his father ever was. Tom bounces between girlfriends who are either too religious or not religious enough, then marries a comparative religion professor. The union solves nothing. Tom stumbles through an affair, breaks his leg, gets lost leading a funeral, and suffers a breakdown. Both father and son wrestle with the same impossible questions about belief, doubt, and what it means to live a moral life.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
320 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown