No doubt about it: Jonathan Franzen is one of the most extraordinary writers around. Laura Shapiro, Newsweek Ingeniously put together... His ear for American vernacular is flawless...His gift for description has a kinetic immediacy....One of the best writers under forty at work in this country. Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times Bold, layered...an elaborate construct, with the stuff of several books crammed into one.... An affirmation of Mr. Franzens fierce imagination and distinctive seriocomic voice. Josh Rubins, The New York Times Book Review Lyrical, dramatic and, above all, fearless....Were in the presence of a great American moralist in the tradition of Dreiser, Twain, or Sinclair Lewis. The Philadelphia Inquirer Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings earthquakes strike the city, and the first one kills his grandmother. During a bitter feud over the inheritance Louis falls in love with Rene Seitchek, a passionate and brilliant seismologist, whose discoveries about the origin of the earthquakes complicate everything.