"An indelible and haunting new novel that explores the loss of childhood, inter-generational conflict, and humanity's complacency in the face of its own demise. Lydia Millet's multilayered new novel -- her first since the National Book Award Longlist SweetLamb of Heaven -- follows a group of children and their families on summer vacation at a lakeside mansion. The teenage narrator, Eve, and the other children are contemptuous of their parents, who...

As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.