Michael Kimball
The Way the Family Got Away

"Detailing the cross-country migration of a nameless family after the death of an infant child, Kimball's brief, unusual novel alternates narration between two extremely young characters: the family's surviving son and his barely school-age sister … Kimball evinces an undeniable feel for the cadences of children's speech." — Publishers Weekly

"A bleak, powerful, and extraordinary debut." — Book Seller (starred review)

"Michael Kimball's novel The Way the Family Got Away is an imaginative narrative about two children and their perceptions of death. For those of us who fear it, this almost primitive vision is fresh and makes death seem a bit like a charade. A most unusual book." — Diane Wakoski

After the death of their infant son, a family travels up through middle America, from Mineola, Texas, to Gaylord, Michigan, with all that they own, including the body of their dead baby in the trunk. In Michael Kimball's disturbing first novel, the surviving son and his younger sister puzzle through their family's journey — she by playing with her doll family in an effort to understand the emotional landscape and he by knowing the physical geography: the names of the towns and the things it took them to get there. They trade their belongings — the mother's wedding ring and the father's wallet, the son's clothes and the daughter's locket — in order to get from one small town to the next. The destination is the house where Bompa — Grandfather — lives. When they arrive, after what seems a lifetime of "going away," they are depleted of their possessions and of their dignity, and, in the end, the children are left alone with Bompa to imagine their futures: how to get their house and their lives and their family and everything else that was theirs back.

The Way the Family Got Away is Michael Kimball's first novel. It will be published by Fourth Estate in the U.K., Adelphi in Italy, Suhrkamp in Germany, and Standaard and De Bezige Bij in the Netherlands. He grew up in Michigan and lives in Lubbock, Texas.