A fascinating portrait of urban American life, from a new voice in American literature.

When young Sam Webber's father suddenly disappears without a trace.

Sam and his mother are forced to move to a lough neighbourhood, closer to where his mother works.

Unfamiliar with his surroundings and intimidated by his new schoolmates.

Sam is forced to deal with the legacy of depression that marked his father and is now threatening to envelop him.

But then he meets Greely, an elderly black janitor at his junior high, and begins to confront the racism that surrounds the community he is living in.

Gradually Sam starts to understand how friendship and happy moments can emerge even in the saddest times.