He started the book at two-fifteen on a Saturday afternoon in early December. There were other things he’d rather be doing-watching the Notre Dame game, for instance, or even listening to it on the radio-but that was freezing rain slashing down outside the window, predicted to turn to snow by nightfall, and the power had been out for over an hour. Barb was at the mall, indulging her shopping disorder, Buck was away at college in Plattsburgh and the dog lay in an arthritic bundle on the carpet in the hall. He’d built a fire, checked the hurricane lamps for fuel and distributed them around the house, washed up the breakfast dishes by hand (the dishwasher was just an artifact now, like the refrigerator and the furnace) and then he’d gone into Buck’s room in search of reading material.

His son’s room was another universe, an alien space contained within the walls of the larger, more familiar arena of the house he knew in all its smallest details, from the corroding faucet in the downstair…