NAMED A RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2018 BY
The New York Times - The Chicago Reader - Nylon - The
Boston Globe - The Huffington Post - The Rumpus - The AV Club -
Southern Living - The Millions - Buzzfeed - Esquire -
Publishers Weekly
A powerful and moving new novel from an award-winning, acclaimed
author: in the wake of a devastating revelation, a father and son
journey north across a tapestry of towns
When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn't have long
left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his
adult son--a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With
no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last
trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental
bureau and leaves town with his son.
Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending
letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of
human experience. While some townspeople welcome them into their homes,
others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are
wary of their presence. When they press toward the edges of
civilization, the landscape grows wilder, and the towns grow farther
apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach "Z," the
man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the
census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to
say good-bye to his son?
Mysterious and evocative, Census is a novel about free will, grief,
the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love, from one of our
most captivating young writers.