A stunning debut novel about love and family, about the violence of memory and the equal violence of its loss.

Ann and Wade have carved out a life for themselves from a rugged landscape in northern Idaho, where they are bound together by more than love. With her husband’s memory fading, Ann attempts to piece together the truth of what happened to Wade's first wife and to their daughters. In a story written in exquisite prose and told from multiple perspectives—including Ann, Wade, and Wade’s first wife Jenny, now serving a life sentence in prison—we gradually learn of the mysterious and shocking act that fractured Wade and Jenny's lives, of the love and compassion that brought Ann and Wade together, and of the memories that reverberate through the lives of every character in Idaho.

Wade's past is the center of Ann’s imagination, especially as the memories that haunt Wade begin to disappear inside of his illness. In a wild emotional and physical landscape, Ann becomes determined to understand the family she never knew—and to take responsibility for them, reassembling their lives, and her own. 

About this startling and beautiful novel by O. Henry prize-winner Emily Ruskovich, Andrea Barrett has said: “Idaho is both a place and an emotional dimension. Haunted, haunting, her novel winds through time, braiding events and their consequences in the most unexpected and moving ways."