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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
A shooting at the novel's center; violence and its long aftermath
Language
Barely any
Mild language
Sexual Content
Barely any
Adult marriage and relationship depicted with realism; nothing explicit
Substance Use
Some
Alcoholism as a significant theme across generations
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Mental illness and its impact on a family; the forty-year aftermath of one night of violence; the question of whether forgiveness is possible when it costs everything
What this book is about
Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are NYPD officers who become neighbors in suburban New York in 1973. Their children — Peter and Kate — grow up as each other's best friends and eventually fall in love. And then one night, a shooting changes everything. Mary Beth Keane's novel spans forty years of the Gleeson and Stanhope families, tracing what happens after violence — how a marriage survives mental illness, how children recover from what their parents did, how people decide whether to forgive. A quiet, deeply felt American novel about the long work of love.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
a shooting and its generational trauma
mental illness in a family setting
themes of forgiveness and reconciliation
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