About Grace: A Novel

Anthony Doerr is the author of the New York Times #1 Bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, named one of the best books of 2014 by the Washington Post, NPR's Fresh Air, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. The Los Angeles Times called his stories in The Shell Collector "as close to faultless as any writer—young or vastly experienced—could wish for." About Grace, his first novel, has been hailed as one of the most compelling and entrancing novels of recent times.

David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen—a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.

On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind.

Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.