Shedding light on the lives of individuals often willingly cast adrift from their histories, Colm Tóibín's stories tell of fleeing the past and returning home, of family threads lost and ultimately regained.

Jason Kolarich’s wife and daughter were killed while he was at the office, awaiting a call from a confidential informant named Ramirez --- a call that never came. He can't bring back his family, but he can find out who killed Ramirez and bring the killer to justice. 

Tommy Ogden declines to give his wife the money to commission a bust of herself from the French master Auguste Rodin, and instead announces his intention to endow a boys’ school. His decision reverberates years later in the life of Lee Goodell, whose coming of age is at the heart of Ward Just’s novel.