I had read the opening pages of this book several times, and then set it aside, despite the fact that I love some of the author’s other books (first and foremost: “Out Stealing Horses”). They are not easy pages. They are about a man in difficulty, and his confusion and pain came through to me, and I set the book down. This time I read on, and the book was never easy, but it opened a door into another person’s life, in a far country, in far different circumstances. And it spoke about the things that may break us, and the connections between us. And it managed this even though I read much of it while traveling, and read the end while sitting on the floor of a crowded airport terminal, amid announcement after announcement of canceled flights and changed gates and our own delayed pilot. And I liked it very much indeed.