If the difference between life and fiction is that life goes on, no matter what happens, while fiction has a beginning, middle and end, this novel turns that theory on its ear. What happens after the main event in a family's life--the death by terrorists of the family's only son, a journalist--is the subject of this compelling novel. Henkin examines all the loose threads that float free after a tragedy; he adeptly demonstrates that our lives are venn diagrams of story and that there is artistic material everywhere in daily life. This could be a small, quiet story but in Henkin's brilliant hands it becomes a rowdy, intelligent, engrossing set of interlinked experiences, peopled by wonderfully realized characters.(less)