In Michael Kimball's chilling first novel, The Way the Family Got Away, two siblings, a girl aged three and boy aged seven, try to comprehend the death of their infant brother. The story takes place on the road, as their family runs from their grief on a long and painful journey to their grandfather's house, slowly selling off all of their worldly possessions as they go. The children develop careful coping mechanisms to escape the grief and instability of their lives. The girl finds a new family in her dolls and plays out her own pain in the lives she creates for them; the boy makes a meticulous inventory of their trip, cataloging the names of the towns they drive through, the things they leave behind in each of them. Writing through the eyes and language of the children, Kimball tries to make sense of loss, love, and death in this poetic and profound work.
