First published 2020
Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang discover a bloodied, unconscious boy in a field while walking home from school one September afternoon in 1999. Their quick action saves his life, but the violent encounter transforms each sibling in unexpected ways. Matthew becomes fixated on finding the attacker and secretly partners with the victim's brother to search their town. Zoe roams Oxford's streets studying men until an American graduate student notices her back. Duncan, who never questioned his adoption before, suddenly needs to locate his birth mother. As autumn progresses, the three siblings navigate their emerging adulthood while sensing their parents' marriage cracking beneath the surface. The traumatic discovery pulls them toward each other even as their individual quests drive them apart. Each sibling must confront how a single moment of violence can reshape everything they thought they knew about themselves and their family.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Oxford, United Kingdom
Period: 1999
257 pages · Hardcover · Harper
Content warnings: violence