A big new American novel for our times, by the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Empire Falls, about innocence and cynicism, optimism and despair, mining the secrets of society and the human heart in a rich, dramatic and big-hearted story of families and growing up, and the secrets which define a community - rich, sinuous and surprising, with new and darker undercurrents.

Two boys grow up in Thomaston, upstate New York. Louis Charles Lynch, aka Lucy, marries his childhood sweetheart and settles down to run a small empire of convenience stores. He's a good man, but he isn't always as reliable as he seems, and secretly longs for what he can't have... His best friend Bobby escapes to Italy and becomes an artist, trading in past and family for a life far removed from Thomaston.

Now, at sixty years old, Lucy and his wife Sarah are about to relinquish their usual quiet routine and travel to Venice to find Bobby, though they have not heard from him for many years. The truth about why he left, and about the ties that bind these three friends, is intricate and heartbreaking.