Shelter in Place (A Novel)

A troubled young man’s bright future takes a strange turn when his mother commits murder in this “riveting and disturbing novel” of 1990s Washington State (The Guardian).

A Guardian and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016. Joseph March, a twenty-one-year-old working-class kid from Seattle, is on top of the world. He has just graduated college and his limitless future beckons. But Joe’s life suddenly implodes when he starts to suffer from the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Then, not long after, his mother kills a man she’s never met with a hammer. Joe moves to White Pine, Washington, where his mother is serving time and his father has set up house. Followed there by his girlfriend, Tess Wolff, Joe’s life falls into a daily rhythm of prison visits followed by beer and pizza at a local bar. Meanwhile, Joe’s mother, Anne-Marie, is gradually becoming a local heroine. Many see her crime as a furious, exasperated act of righteous rebellion. Tess, too, has fallen under her spell. Spurred on by Anne-Marie’s example, Tess enlists Joe in a secret, violent plan that will forever change their lives.
Shelter in Place is a stylish novel about the hereditary nature of mental illness, the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligations of family, and the dramatic consequences of love.