The boys are Bob and Jim. They both now live in New York City. They, however, grew up in Shirley Falls, Maine, where their sister, Susan, still lives with her son Zach.
One day Zach throws a pig's head into a Somali mosque. The novel begins with this incident. Susan, a worried, crabby, rather unlovely woman calls her brothers for help. Bob and Jim live very different lives. Jim is rich and successful with a devoted, confident wife and three grown children. Bob gets by but is content with far less. He has no children and is single again. Their differences in character are slowly revealed as the novel progresses. But they are also family and they do what they can, in their own ways, to help Susan and Zach. As the story progresses, we also learn more of the lives of Bob's ex-wife, Jim's wife, Susan's elderly renter, a Somali man named Abdikarim, a Unitarian minister. There are the big city chapters and the small town in Maine chapters with themes of what families do for each other, how they care (or don't care) for each other and how the past (though seldom talked about) is the elephant in their lives.
So a fine stew of families, prejudice, love, deceit, youth, middle-age and morality is served up by an author with a mastery of the ingredients that make a wonderful story.
Ms. Strout was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Olive Kitteridge. She lives in NYC and Maine.
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