Howard Norman's new novel, What Is Left The Daughter, opens with the kind of tragedy that reminds you that there is really no such thing as a small town.
Wyatt Hillyer is a teenage boy in Nova Scotia whose mother and father throw themselves off of different bridges because they've each fallen in love with the same woman.
But that's just where the novel begins. By the time it ends, a cast of characters will be caught up in Shakespearean range of war, love, an ineradicable moment of hate and loss, and lives that endure.
Host Scott Simon talks with Norman about his most recent novel. Norman is a National Book Award nominee for his novels The Northern Lights and The Bird Artist.
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