Books
Jesse Ball

Census

NAMED A RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2018 BY
TheNew York TimesTheChicago Reader Nylon   The Boston Globe • TheHuffington Post • The Rumpus  The AV Club •Southern Living •The Millions • Buzzfeed • Esquire • Publishers Weekly

A powerful and moving new novel from an award-winning, acclaimed author: in the wake of a devastating revelation, a father and son journey north across a tapestry of towns
When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn’t have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son—a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son.

Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. While some townspeople welcome them into their homes, others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are wary of their presence. When they press toward the edges of civilization, the landscape grows wilder, and the towns grow farther apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach “Z,” the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say good-bye to his son?
Mysterious and evocative, Census is a novel about free will, grief, the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love, from one of our most captivating young writers.

172 printed pages
Original publication
2018
Publication year
2018
Publishers
HarperCollins, Ecco
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
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Quotes

  • Andrey Moch has quoted5 years ago
    giving no heed to anything but what functions
  • Andrey Moch has quoted5 years ago
    She was in the house at the time and had stood behind the drapes.
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