Run for the Hills

A set of half-siblings meet each other for the first time in this pleasant if tepid road novel from Wilson (Now Is Not the Time to Panic). It’s 2007 when Boston mystery author Rube Hill learns he has three younger half-siblings. He rents a car and drives south to look up his half-sister, Madeline “Mad” Hill, an organic farmer in Tennessee. As Rube explains to Mad, their father abandoned each of their families in turn before starting a new life. Rube convinces Mad to join him on a road trip to visit their other two half-siblings—Pepper “Pep” Hill, a college basketball sensation in Oklahoma, and Theron, who’s still a young child, in Utah—before continuing to California in search of their father. As Rube drives across the country assembling the group, they compare memories of their father and the lingering hurt over his sudden disappearances. Though the tone verges on saccharine, Wilson’s character work is top-notch, and he makes clear how the foursome struggle to connect in part because their father was a different man while raising each of them. This has less bite than Wilson’s best work, but there’s still plenty of heart. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group. (May)