Last things

Grace's mother tells her there's a monster in the nearby lake and teaches her about African hyena men who devour their wives in their sleep. Grace's father, a dedicated scientist, tells her that monsters don't exist and explains to her the stark truths of the Big Bang. Eight-year-old Grace's world, spun from fact and fiction, marvels and madness, is slowly unraveling. She is torn between her two very different, very flawed parents, and sorts out her conflicting loyalties on a dizzying journey that takes her away from her home in Vermont to the boozy, flooded streets of New Orleans--and into the equally wondrous and frightening realm of her own imagination.