Caleb was driving home for Christmas. Steven was pounding beers at a local bar. Matthew was out looking for his ex-girlfriend. Leo was walking in the woods on a winter night. Then they disappeared. Years later, their bodies turn up in icy rivers hundreds of miles apart. What connects them? Some of their loved ones believe the official answers. Meanwhile, Caleb, Steven, Matthew and Leo find one other in the murky depths of the afterlife. Each tells his story in his own way, speaking his version of truth, confessing his desires and grievances and even his hopes for a future he still somehow believes belongs to him. Each revelation brings the reader deeper into their intertwined fates, along a journey through the landscapes of identity, intimacy and the haunting echoes of unresolved grief.

In July 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysteriously taciturn young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives. Ten years later, Frank revisits the tempestuous events of that fateful summer from his deathbed in Manhattan, where he waits anxiously for Tennessee to visit him one final time. Anja, now legendary film icon Anja Bloom, lives as a recluse in the present-day U.S., until a young man connected to the events of 1953 lures her reluctantly back into the spotlight after he discovers she possesses the only surviving copy of Williams' final play.

It's been 50 years since Antonio Grasso married Maddalena and brought her to America. Prima, Antonio and Maddalena's American-born daughter, was raised on the lore of the old country. And as she sees her parents aging, she hatches the idea to take the entire family back to Italy --- hoping to reunite Maddalena with her estranged sister and let her parents see their homeland one last time.