In this "dazzling debut" (Publishers Weekly), the moving story of one man's quest for happiness is interwoven with speculative tales of the Before and After, resulting in a profound yet playful literary journey into the ache and wonder of being human.

In the Before, humankind is created with a hole in its heart, the designers not realizing their mistake --- if it was a mistake --- until too late.

Elliot Chance is just a boy and knows nothing of this. All he knows is that he doesn’t feel at home in this world, and his desire for escape becomes more urgent as he grows into adulthood, where the turbulence of life seems to offer no cure for the emptiness. Desperate and lost, he stumbles upon a support group on the edge of Manhattan. There he meets two other drifting souls --- Sasha, a young woman who leaves coded messages in the copy she writes for advertising campaigns, and Bannor, whose detailed depictions of the future make Elliot think he may have actually been there. With these two unlikely allies, Elliot launches into the business of life, determined to be happy in spite of himself.

Yet the hole in the heart is not so easily filled.