Two boys grow up in Thomaston, upstate New York. One of them gets away to Italy, where he becomes a painter. The other stays to marry Sarah, also an artist; to run a small empire of convenience stores; and to tell their story. He's a good man, but Louis Charles Lynch, known as Lucy, isn't always as reliable as he seems, and even he secretly longs for what he can't have.

Now, at sixty years old, he and Sarah are about to travel to Venice, where Lucy's oldest friend and rival has traded life and family for a life far removed from Thomaston. The truth about why he left, and aboutthe ties that bind these three friends, is complex, heartbreaking and utterly compelling.

In graceful, elegiac sentences...Pulitzer Prize-winning Russo exposes the dark heart of the American Dream * Daily Mail *
Richly evocative and beautifully wrought...a novel of great warmth, charm and intimacy...sharp, funny storytelling * New York Times *
No novelist working today can better capture the rhythms of small-town life, from its comic idiosyncrasies to its wicked undercurrents of gossip and prejudice * Sunday Times *
Russo's state-of-the-nation novel is a complex read, but totally engrossing * Marie Claire *
Beautifully done -- DJ Taylor * Guardian *

Richard Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for his fifth novel, Empire Falls. He is also the author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody’s Fool, Straight Man, That Old Cape Magic, as well as a collection of stories, The Whore’s Child. and the memoir, On Helwig Street. His original screenplay is the basis for Rowan Atkinson’s film Keeping Mum. He lives with his wife in Maine.