William Lychack, The Wasp Eater

Every unhappy family is unique, Leo Tolstoy reminds us, which might be one reason for the rich vein of stories about children coping with a broken home, including this highly praised first novel. Lychack, whom you might have heard on This American Life, frankly admits that the nine-year-old protagonist of Wasp Eater is autobiographical in spirit. Writing this book was his way of trying to get to know an unknowable and long-disappeared father. If this is novel-as-therapy, though, it’s a finely wrought example.
Available August 9