This lark of stolen time

During a dispiriting March snowstorm, all four of the Lauder Jones children are living at home again. It's a rare moment of congress before the family dissolves. Their father, Douglas, is an obscure short-story writer, and their mother, Ursula, a neuroscientist searching for the cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. John, the eldest, works in his mother's lab at Dalhousie University. Though he has only his dissertation left to complete...