A friendship made complicated by an abusive father spans from early adolescence to the ennui of middle age, from a Canadian tourist town to southwest Michigan, until it threatens to upend the main character’s carefully constructed life of Bush II Midwestern affluence. An examination of the curious ways that men bond, the lasting effects of the most routine choices, and why a brutal man can scar even those he doesn’t touch. Laced with wry observations that will make readers recall awkward moments in their own lives, we are faced with the unsettling reality that we never truly escape the seminal events of our formative years.