Nocturne

"A thirty-two-year-old former piano prodigy recounts the tragic accident that tore his family apart. With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, [author] explores the aftershock of this unimaginable event. The father is so incapable of forgiveness that he puts a gun in his son's mouth, the mother so shattered that she deserts the family and eventually takes leave of her sanity altogether. The son--only seventeen years old at the time--sets out for New York City. There, he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and reinvents himself as a writer. Across the decade and a half that follows, he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and the estrangement of his surviving family while making a desperate search for redemption."--Back cover.