It's 2004. George W. Bush is about to be elected to a second term as president. The country is at war in Iraq, and the Casper family of Chicago, Illinois is falling apart. Jonathan Casper is obsessed with finding a living specimen of a prehistoric squid that may hold the key to proving the theory of evolution. Madeleine Casper wants to know why her pigeons keep murdering one another, and whether she should still be married to her husband. Amelia, the oldest Casper daughter, wants everyone to wake up and realize that capitalism is evil and that blow jobs, rather than sex, are the way for a young feminist to go. Thisbe, the younger Casper girl, is trying to sort out her complicated feelings about God and the new girl in the school chorus. And the family patriarch, Henry, is trying his hardest to disappear, one word at a time.

The Great Perhaps is a family drama unlike any you've read before. Each chapter focuses on one character's story and uses a different narrative technique in each. For instance, each of Madeleine's chapters takes the form of scientific field notes, as she's conducting an experiment observing the social tendencies of pigeons.

Meno is obsessed with control, or our lack thereof, and each of the characters struggles with a world they feel is out of control. I found the plight of the children to be particularly moving, as they're not only facing their own challenges as high school kids in 21st Century America, but also dealing with their parents' issues, to boot. This is a big novel (a portion of it takes place in a German/Japanese American internment camp during World War II) that feels intimate, a serious book that's also fun to read. It's inventive without being alienating or too clever (it's just the right amount of clever). The result is a daring new novel, bubbling with originality, tenderness and charm.

Recommended by Patrick