The Language of Love and Loss

When his difficult mother is diagnosed with ALS, a sharp-witted yet sensitive artist reluctantly returns to his New Hampshire hometown and all the ghosts he left behind.

Fans of Andrew Sean Greer, Bryan Washington, and Jonathan Tropper will adore this outrageously funny, deeply touching, buoyant novel from the award-winning author of Leave Myself Behind.

As it turns out, you can go home again. But sometimes, you really, really don t want to . . .


Home, for Noah York, is Oakland, New Hampshire, the sleepy little town where Noah s mother, Virginia, had a psychotic breakdown and Noah got beaten to a pulp as a teenager. Then there were the good times and Noah s not sure which ones are more painful to recall.

Now thirty-seven and eking out a living as an artist in Providence, Rhode Island, Noah looks much the same and swears just as colorfully as he did in high school. Virginia has become a wildly successful poet who made him the subject of her most famous poem, The Lost Soul, a label Noah will never live down. And J.D., the one who got away because Noah stupidly drove him away is in a loving marriage with a successful, attractive man whom Noah despises wholeheartedly.

Is it any surprise Noah wishes he could ignore his mother s summons to come visit

But Virginia has shattering news to deliver, and a request he can t refuse. Soon, Noah will track down the sister and extended family he never knew existed, try to keep his kleptomaniac cousin out of jail, feud with a belligerent neighbor, confront J.D. s jealous husband and face J.D. himself, the ache from Noah s past that never fades. . . . All the while, contending with his brilliant, unpredictable mother.