Signal Fires

This is Dani Shapiro's eleventh book but her first novel after a fifteen-year gap, about a single tragic event that changes the lives of one family forever, and those of the family next door as well. Despite being character-driven the story has a super plotty opener: on a summer night in 1985, three teenagers go out drinking, one of them gets behind the wheel anyway, and there’s a terrible accident. Someone dies, someone else lies about it—and the consequences will be felt for generations. This moving story spans fifty years as it slowly examines the many secrets held between two families with an unexpected connection, and reflects on aging, grief, love and redemption, and what it means to be a family.