From the best-selling author of The Painted House, Skipping Christmas, and The Firm comes a nostalgic novel about high school football in a small Texas town, a place in which football has become a religion. High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who...

A telephone call informs Krishan that his grandmother's caretaker, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances -- found at the bottom of the village well, her neck broken. The news coincides with the arrival of an email from Anjum, an impassioned yet aloof activist Krishan fell in love with years before while living in Delhi. Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Provice for Rani's funeral.

Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life's unfulfilled promises; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Reunited by three funerals over three decades, the dwindling family...