Read Philip Stephens's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

"A lavishly written, vividly imagined, and wholly compelling work of fiction...I was spellbound. Often, in fact, I was in awe."
-Tim O'Brien

After years of indie-label exile, folk singer Cyrus Harper returns to Apogee, Missouri, to tend to his mother. But the musical and haunted world of his past is morphing into just another strip of middle America, corrupted with pawn shops, meth labs, Clear Channel radio, and-if Cyrus's brother has his way-a golfer's paradise. As news of a murderess in the woods confounds the memories of his sister gone missing long ago, this prodigal son is drawn deeper into the cave- riddled realm of stalwarts and misfits he knew in his youth. What he discovers there will change everything.

A phantasmagoric tale of American music set during the crucible of its changing industry, Miss Me When I'm Gone plumbs our storied melodies for their essential purpose-to mine the soul for the longing, the passion, the love and rage that drive us.

Watch a Video