The Half Moon

Malcolm Gephardt, gregarious bartender at the Half Moon in Upstate New York, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss retires, Malcolm seizes his chance. His wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career, but after years of unsuccessfully trying for a baby finds herself slipping away from her work and her marriage.

When a blizzard hits their town, on the same day that Malcolm learns some shocking news about Jess, and a key patron of the bar disappears, everyone is frozen in place for a single, pivotal week, forcing Malcolm and Jess to confront their uncertain future.

Absorbing ... Keane excels at moments of interior deliberation ... it's such a pleasure to sink into Keane's quietly luminous prose ... Her recordings of the small, significant moments of life have a way of standing for something larger... [Keane's] perceptive, generous observations and attention to her characters' inner lives make for a book that is much, much more than the sum of its characters. She manages to find the extraordinary grace in our achingly ordinary world ― New York Times