Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, he obsessively replays the traumas of war, cataloging the names of the dead.

Cat, his wife, is a genealogist who makes maps of families in an attempt to understand her world.

When a car accident takes Otis's left arm, he is grateful to bear a physical loss that makes his damaged emotional self visible.

Enveloped and interspersed with letter narration, the short and shorter sections of the book craft a psychological domestic journey in three acts from Otis’ isolation to a delayed reunion with his wife, Cat.

Birman's careful structure offers road signs for the reader travelling the confusion of the narrator's consuming obsessions."