Michael is a bright kid: funny, likable, obsessed with books and music. His sister Celia is the practical one, sensible, far tougher than her brothers. And then there's Alec, the most ambitious of the three but also the most sensitive, growing up in the shadow of his older siblings. The children are still living at home when their father walks into the woods alone one day and takes his own life. Years later, one of them will follow him.

Weaving together the voices of five family members, Adam Haslett imagines how a single tragedy can define many lives.