Our missing hearts : a novel

"Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet and circumspect existence with his loving but broken father, a talented linguist now relegated to shelving books in Harvard's library. He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve "American culture" in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the...