The Frankel family gathers over the long Independence Day weekend to memorialize their missing member: son, brother, husband: Leo. Outside, storms come and go; inside, their emotionally-charged reunion brings confessions and discoveries, resentments and reassurances. Joshua Henkin creates a complete, fully realized world, where we can hear the flapping of leaves against a car and feel the rain as it falls on our shoulders. The Frankels bicker and talk, leave and return, and all of it centers around the vacuum left when Leo died. As we discover more about their pasts and what has led them to this point, we uncover what Leo meant to them and how his absence has disrupted the balance of the family. A ruminative story about relationships and their difficulties and about the never-ending pull of family.

Mary Vensel White, author of The Qualities of Wood