"Lucas Mann's stepbrother Josh died of a heroin overdose when Lucas was only thirteen years old. Charismatic, ambitious, cruel and sadistic, violent and vulnerable, possibly schizophrenic, Josh's brief life was ultimately unknowable. Yet, Josh is both a presence and absence in the author's life that will not remain unclaimed. Told in kaleidoscopic shards of memories assembled from interviews with Josh's friends and family and the raw material of Josh's own journals, a revealing, startling portrait unfolds. At the same time, Mann pulls back to question and examine his own complicated feelings about and motives for recovering memories of his brother's life, searching for a balance between the tension of the inevitability of Josh's life and the 'what-ifs' that beg to be asked"--