The Wasp Eater

The first novel by an author already featured in The Best American Short Stories and National Public Radio's This American Life, The Wasp Eater charts the raw emotional undercurrents of a family in crisis. Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, this magnetic novel is the story of a ten-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents, a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears. After learning of her husband's infidelity, Daniel's mother throws the man and his things out of the house. But Robert Cussler is a stubborn and impulsive man, and he returns almost nightly to his son's window. Through the moonlit screen, father and son secretly plot ways to make the family whole again. Daniel's chosen plan goes horribly wrong, and he finds himself accompanying his father on one final betrayal of everything the boy knows and loves. At once dreamlike and clear-eyed, The Wasp Eater poignantly uncovers the depths of emotion that echo through regular lives, and the surprising human capacity for resilience after heartbreak.