Night Came With Many Stars: A Novel

"In 1933, Carol’s daddy, Clay, wagers her in a game of poker and loses. In 1986, Carol’s grandson Samuel gets a nail in his eye while messing around with his best friend during shop class. These two points – fixed in history, set on the page – are the moments upon which everything else hangs. Simon Van Booy’s Night is a book about generations. It’s about crossroads and choices, the poisoned well of memory. It is a heartbreaking, gorgeous book, told in the native tongue and tempos of paint factory employees and domestics and diner waitresses, of the guys working 20 years on the line at the Ford plant and those walking dazedly out into the light after 10 spent in prison. An ordinary world that Van Booy sketches with sharp clarity and a softness that borders on magical, finding the weakness, grace and beauty of common lives fully lived."