"Wilson's ambition alone is exciting. . . . His] writing has a Houdini-like perfection, wherein no matter how grim the variables, each lovely sentence manages to escape with all its parts intact." --Boston Globe

When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's fresh out of high school, pregnant with her art teacher's baby, and totally on her own. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or relatives to help, she's left searching.

Dr. Grind, an awkwardly charming child psychologist, has spent his life studying family, even after...