Ten-year-old Miller lives with his mother in Watertown, New York, life has become a struggle to make sense of his father's disappearance, for which he blames himself. Then, when he becomes convinced that he has found his father lying comatose in the local veterans' hospital, a victim of the war in Iraq, Miller begins a search for the one person he believes can save him: his father's idol, the famously reclusive-and, unfortunately, dead-Frederick Exley.

This is the story of Miller's search, told by both Miller himself and his somewhat flaky therapist. In this sly, funny and deeply tender novel, Brock Clarke explores the relationship between sons and their fathers, the nature of reality in its various unlikely forms and the difference, if there is one, between wanting and belief.

'Close to a masterpiece.' Sydney Morning Herald