
Purchase
THE EXACT NATURE OF OUR WRONGS By: Janet Peery
St. Martin's Press
September 2017
On Sale: September 19, 2017
288 pages ISBN: 1250125081 EAN: 9781250125088 Kindle: B06XC4MKSH Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Fiction
Janet Peeryβs first novel, The River Beyond the World, was a National Book Award finalist in 1996. Acclaimed for her gorgeous writing and clear-eyed gaze into the hearts of people, Peery now returns with her second novel, The Exact Nature of Our Wrongs. On a summer evening in the blue-collar town of Amicus, Kansas, the Campbell family gathers for a birthday dinner for their ailing patriarch, retired judge Abel Campbell, prepared and hosted by their still-hale mother Hattie. But when Billy, the youngest siblingβwith a history of addiction, grand ideas, and misdemeanorsβpasses out in his devilβs food cake, the family takes up the unfinished business of Billyβs sobriety. Billyβs wayward adventures have too long consumed their lives, in particular Hattieβs, who has enabled his transgressions while trying to save him from Abelβs disappointment. As the older childrenβDoro, Jesse, ClairBell, and Gideonβcontend with their own troubles, they compete for the approval of the elderly parents they adore, but canβt quite forgive. With knowing humor and sure-handed storytelling, Janet Peery reveals a family at its best and worst, with old wounds and new, its fractures and feuds, and yet its unbreakable bonds.
|