Author Description

"A MOVING EMBLEM OF FATHERHOOD'S RARELY EXPLORED PASSION." --Los Angeles Times John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft, Fay and Carl's dead father, and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers.... "Patchett writes with remarkable conviction and attention to telling detail....Patchett is excellent at portraying the steady love and interest that holds the family members together, even though that love and interest isn't always successful in preserving the members from danger." --Jane Smiley Mirabella "Absorbing...Strikingly original." --Kirkus Reviews "Compassionate and deeply moving." --Booklist