It's December 23, 1971, and pastor Russ Hildebrandt is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless—unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their children have their own issues: Clem has taken an action that will shatter his father; social queen Becky has sharply veered into the counterculture; and Perry, who's been selling drugs, has resolved to be a better person. In this thoughtful epic by the author of The Corrections, each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.