The Testing of Luther Albright — MacKenzie Bezos

“A sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart. A sure-footed excavation into the nuances of everyday terror -- the kind that turns devotion into despair, trust into treachery, love into loss. Its pull is irresistible.”   --  Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Solomon

“Quietly absorbing . . . the slow pileup of events takes on unexpected, if mild urgency . . . wholly original and convincing.”   --  New York Times Book Review

Luther Albright is a builder of dams, a man whose greatest pride (besides his family) is running his hands over the true planes of the house he built himself and knowing that he's constructed something that will shield and shelter them from harm.

A relatively minor incident -- an earthquake that shakes his Sacramento home -- reveals fault lines and cracks in the facade of his family. His teenage son's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and threatening, his devoted wife more distant, and then a dam of Luther's design comes under investigation for structural flaws exposed by the tremors. In the midst of his heartbreaking family dissolution, Luther must battle against the need to withhold his emotions and push his family even farther away.

Nightmarish meanings begin to shout at Luther from the most innocent of places as debut novelist MacKenzie Bezos tightens her net of psychological suspense around the reader with bravura skill. In the spirit of Rosellen Brown and Alice McDermott, this is a harrowing portrait of an ordinary man who finds himself tested and strives not to be found wanting.