Family and Other Accidents (2006)

When his mom dies of an aneurysm five years after his dad's fatal heart attack, 15-year-old Connor Reed is placed under the care of his slick 25-year-old lawyer brother, Jack. What follows is a heartbreaking story about two very different siblings struggling to love and relate to one another over a quarter century through relocation, illness, and relationships both broken and reconciled. Shari Goldhagen's spare prose delicately mines the complexities of how loved ones seem close and far away — often at the same time — and how the smallest word uttered has the power to unravel or save. Family and Other Accidents is a lot like family: relatable, familiar, flawed, at times painfully dysfunctional, and something that you embrace enthusiastically.