In this literary masterwork, Louise Erdrich wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture. --Amazon.com

When a son returns home to Ireland to see his dying father, he tries to atone for the sins of his past.

In 1935 England, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses an event involving her sister Cecilia and her childhood friend Robbie Turner, and she becomes the victim of her own imagination, which leads her on a lifelong search for truth and absolution.

In 1935, 13-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis and her family live a life of wealth and privilege in their enormous mansion. On the warmest day of the year, the country estate takes on an unsettling hothouse atmosphere, stoking Briony's vivid imagination. Robbie Turner, the educated son of the family's housekeeper, carries a torch for Briony's headstrong older sister Cecilia. He hopes that Cecilia has comparable feelings. All it will take is...

When a train derails in Two Rivers, railroad worker and single father Harper Montgomery, who is still tormented by grief and his role in a past crime, finds a chance for atonement when he takes in one of the survivors, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl named Maggie.