Award-winning writer Stewart O'Nan has been acclaimed by critics as
one of the most accomplished novelists writing today. Now comes his
finest and most complete novel to date.
A year after the death of her husband, Henry, Emily Maxwell gathers her
family by Lake Chautauqua in western New York for what will be the last
vacation at their summer cottage. Joining is her sister-in-law, who
silently mourns the sale of the lake house, and a long-lost love.
Emily's firebrand daughter, a recovering alcoholic recently separated
from her husband, brings her children from Detroit. Emily's son, who has
quit his job and mortgaged his future to pursue his art, comes
accompanied by his children and his wife, who is secretly heartened to
be visiting the house for the last time.
Memories of past summers resurface, old rivalries flare up, and love is
rekindled and born anew, resulting in a timeless novel drawn, as the
best writing often is, from the ebbs and flow of daily life.