The first thing I have to say about Dan Chaon’s book is wow. I finished reading this on the subway last night and I almost missed my stop as I was in a sort of stupor having just finished it. The most prevalent themes in the book are identity and fate and how they all come about and this is probably what hit me the most. The final paragraph alone sent me into a tailspin (it reveals nothing to print it here):

She just wants a second chance, she thinks. She just wants to be able to think a moment before she takes another step into her life, to pause and trace along the edges of the people that she might become, but already they are putting a plastic mask over her face, already they are talking to her about breathing and bearing down, and she doesn’t know what she wants yet. She doesn’t know.

Chaon’s story follows 3 characters bound through blood, chance and their search for something more. Nora, spiraling into mental illness, deals with the pain of giving away her illegitimate baby. Her second son Jonah instead receives both his mother’s love and bitterness. After the family dog attacks him, Jonah is scarred forever with wounds on the outside and inside. When his mother commits suicide, he leaves in search of his half-brother. The older sibling Troy Timmens, a bartender and sometime drug dealer, has a son of his own, Loomis. Troy means well and always seems to be contemplating another life. Alas, he lacks the will to change his fate. His brother’s sudden appearance in his life will however change things.
Chaon tells the story through flashbacks and flashforwards, raising the tension as you puzzle through the various relationships. He has a real gift for creating characters searching for something else, though what the ‘else’ is never seems tangible.