Carolyn Parkhurst has imaginatively explored different aspects of family and suburban life in her three previous novels, Dogs of Babel, Lost and Found, and The Nobodies Album. Her fourth, Harmony, traces how a family copes with a special-needs child. The Hammonds of Washington, D.C., are rapidly outgrowing the city’s resources for helping their oldest daughter. Tilly may be a genius, but she’s also socially alienated and increasingly hard to control. Unsure even of a diagnosis, the family heads to New Hampshire to try unconventional treatment, an experiment which tests all the Hammonds in unforeseen ways.

At Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC. Click here for info.