Ann Patchett's second novel tells the moving story of John Nickel, an ex-jazz musician who wanted nothing more than to be a good father. When his lover takes away his son, he's left only with his Beale Street bar. He hires a young waitress who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl, and the possibility of new intimacy. Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl's dead father, obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met.
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