Still the World by Cary Fagan

From celebrated storyteller Cary Fagan comes a quiet yet deeply moving portrait of a man and his troubled grandson.

Isaac Walker, a retired engineer and widower in his seventies, receives a call from his daughter one June morning: his sixteen-year-old grandson has been expelled from a private boy’s school after being involved in a hazing and sexual assault incident.

Charged with caring for Benjamin while his parents are in Europe, Isaac is uncertain about how to connect with the withdrawn teen. Desperate, Isaac consults his friend and occasional love interest, Veena, a children’s author struggling with her own issues. Veena’s advice is to give the boy a summer project.

Meanwhile, Isabel, the woman house-sitting next door, mourns the death of her fiancé, who was killed in a cycling accident, and nearby resident Arlene tries to manage her young son’s nightmares caused by the white ghost bike placed in memoriam at the scene.

Through a cast of complex, expertly drawn characters and an exquisitely written narrative, Still the World highlights the timeless necessity of understanding, forgiveness, and love.

Praise for Still the World

“Still the World’s gentle parade of characters, old and young, innocent and devious, seems to head in one direction, only to turn a sharp corner into the dark unknown. A tender, graceful book.” —Elizabeth Hay, author of Snow Road Station

“Sometimes a novel surprises us for its goodness, and its understated leaning into non-judgement. Still the World is that novel, a story of Isaac Walker and the people he encounters, foremost his grandson, who ends up in Isaac’s care. A beautiful story that unassumingly steals into and opens the heart of the reader.” —David Bergen, author of Days of Feasting and Rejoicing