The Hundred Year Flood — Matthew Salesses

In the tradition of "Native Speaker" and "The Family Fang," Matthew Salesses weaves together the tangled threads of identity, love, growing up, and relationships in his stunning first novel, "The Hundred-Year Flood." This beautiful and dreamlike debut follows twenty-two-year-old Tee as he escapes to Prague in the wake of his uncle s suicide and the aftermath of 9/11. Tee tries to convince himself that living in a new place will mean a new identity and a chance to shed the parallels between him and his adopted father. His life intertwines with Pavel Picasso, a painter famous for revolution; Katka, his equally alluring wife; and Picasso's partner a giant of a man with an American name. In the shadow of a looming flood that comes every one hundred years, Tee contemplates his own place in life as both mixed and adopted and as an American in a strange land full of heroes, myths, and ghosts."