Michael Christie

From the bestselling and award-winning author of Greenwood, If I Fall, If I Die is Michael Christie's remarkable debut novel, full of dazzling prose, unforgettable characters, and a poignant and heartfelt depiction of coming of age.

Will has never been Outside, at least not since he can remember. For most of his young life, he has lived happily and safely inside his small house with his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentric agoraphobe who panics at the thought of opening the front door. Inside, their world is rich and loving: there are rooms named after cities they've never been to and art supplies stacked in towers. But Will’s thirst for adventure can’t be contained; he's eleven years old and curiosity is its own kind of gravity.

Clad in a protective helmet and unsure of how to talk to other kids, Will finally ventures outside, bracing himself for disaster. But soon he meets Jonah, who introduces him to the thrills of skateboarding and becomes the first real friend of his life, and he begins to understand what he's been missing.

Then a boy disappears. And the Outside that had started to feel like freedom starts to feel like something else entirely.

In kinetic prose, Michael Christie has written a tender, propulsive coming-of-age story told at the collision point between innocence and the world's hard edges. It is a portrait of a mother's love, and her anguish so deep it becomes its own prison, and a boy brave enough to pick the lock. Luminous, surprising, and utterly humane, this is a novel about learning when to protect the ones we love and when to let them fall—and what it means to be alive.