Stone Boat

The debut novel, first published over twenty years ago, from the National Book Award–winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity—a luminous and moving evocation of the love between a son and his mother, sexuality, the startling changes wrought by grief, loss, and self-discovery.

Harry, an internationally celebrated young concert pianist, decides it''s time to travel to Paris to confront his glamorous and formidable mother about her dismay at his homosexuality. But before he can give voice to his hurt and anger, he discovers that she is terminally ill. In an attempt to escape his feelings of guilt and despair over the prospect of her death, he embarks on several intense affairs—one with a longtime female friend—that force him to question his capacity for love, and finally to rediscover it.

Part eulogy, part confession, and part soliloquy on forgiveness, A Stone Boat is a luminous evocation of the destructive and regenerative, all-encompassing love between a son and his mother, by America’s foremost chronicler of personal and familial resilience.