From the acclaimed author of GROUNDSKEEPING comes a searing family drama set in Kentucky where the homecoming of two half-brothers --- successful Joel with his restless wife Alice and struggling Emmett --- ignites a clash of ambitions and desires, exposing raw truths about class, privilege and happiness in the American South.

FULFILLMENT tells the story of two half-brothers --- Joel, a successful academic and author, whose marriage is in deep trouble and his younger sibling, Emmett, paralyzed by indecision and working on a factory assembly line --- who find themselves at their family home in Kentucky and upend each other’s lives in devasting ways.

Between them is Alice, Joel's wife, a wry, passionate young woman who is being slowly asphyxiated by domestic tedium and whose longing collides with Emmett’s hunger for connection and desire to escape a sense of burgeoning failure and shame. As the chemistry between them escalates, the family is plunged into a violent crucible, each character brought to a precipice of immutable catastrophe.

Incisive, poignant, gorgeously written, Lee Cole has written a haunting novel about class, privilege, brotherhood and the American South, a book that asks whether people can change and at what cost, and what it takes to build a life of fulfillment and meaning.