"A master storyteller."*

As she did in the bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein has written another provocative morality tale, this time dissecting the permeable line between faith and doubt.

College professor Andy Waite is picking up the pieces of a shattered life. Between his research in evolutionary biology and caring for his young daughters, his days are reassurringly safe, if a bit lonely. But when Melissa Potter-charismatic, unpredictable, and devout-asks him to advise her study of intelligent design, he agrees. Suddenly, the world that Andy has fought to rebuild is rocked to its foundations.

"A well-crafted story of wayward souls searching for forgiveness,  healing and personal truth." -Family Circle

"Grodstein handles everything with a subtle wit, managing to skewer both  the ultraconservative and the ultraliberal without making either seem  absolutely wrong . . . Reminiscent of Carolyn Parkhurst's Dogs of Babel." -Booklist

"Finding or losing God proves to be an equally destabilizing tectonic shift,  and this novel is full of them . . . Their cumulative force will leave you  happily unsteady, and moved." -The Washington Post

"Tackles the tough topics: healing after loss, the relevance and possibility of the  divine in our lives, the gilded shackles of academic life, and life in Southern New Jersey-all while always being terrifically entertaining." -*Ben Schrank, author of Love Is a Canoe

"Engrossing . . . You'll likely close the book with a new perspective on faith, justice, mercy, and the difficulty of holding a moral high ground." -Bust

"A novel of ideas and a deeply felt story of love, loss, hope, and the healing powers  of forgiveness . . . A provocative, moving story, and a beautifully written one." -Dani Shapiro, author of Devotion

Lauren Grodstein is the author of the Read with Jenna pick We Must Not Think of Ourselves,The Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything, and the New York Times-bestselling A Friend of the Family, among other works.  Her stories, essays, and articles have appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies, and have been translated into French, German, Chinese, and Italian, among other languages.  Her work has also appeared in Elle,The New York Times, Refinery29, Salon.com, Barrelhouse, Post Road, and The Washington Post.  Her fiction has been recognized by the New York Public Library and Columbia University.
 
She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and two large dogs, and is a professor of English at Rutgers University-Camden, where she directs the MFA program in creative writing.