Air Burial — Jean Shields

Air Burial is an achingly beautiful and keenly observant debut novel that tells the story of three family members who hit the road in an attempt to flee the anxiety and disappointment of their lives. The road-trip frames the action in this poignant and powerful first novel, but on a deeper level, the journey is a search for what is sacred in a world where it seems that nothing is. Jean Shields's exquisite prose, pitch-perfect dialogue, and compelling characters make for a moving, elegiac story about duty and priorities, life and death, and all the things that love can mean.