The bestselling author of The One-in-a-Million Boy has crafted a story collection that "illuminates the grace in the average and everyday" of a small town (San Francisco Chronicle).
In ten interlinking stories, the town of Abbot Falls reacts as Ernie Whitten, pipefitter, builds a giant ark in his backyard. Ernie was weeks away from a pension-secured retirement when the union went on strike. Now his wife Marie is ill. Struck with sudden inspiration, Ernie builds the ark as a work of art for his wife to see from the window, a vessel to carry them both away, or a plea for God to spare Marie, come hell or high water.
As the ark takes shape, the rest of the town carries on. There's Dan Little, a building-code enforcer, who comes to fine Ernie for the ark and makes a significant discovery about himself, Francine Love, a precocious thirteen-year-old who longs to be a part of the family-like world of the union workers, and Atlantic Pulp & Paper CEO Henry John McCoy, an impatient man wearily determined to be a good father to his twenty-six-year-old daughter. The people of Abbott Falls will try their best to hold a community together, against the fiercest of odds...
Few writers can capture the extraordinary within seemingly ordinary lives, as does Monica Wood. An unforgettable tapestry of love, loneliness-and neighbors.
