The Second Coming A Novel
The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg, published by Random House on September 16, 2025, is a novel that delves into the complex relationship between a teenage girl and her father. Spanning 608 pages, this edition presents an intimate epic that explores themes of love, grief, betrayal, and redemption as the characters navigate their intertwined lives.
Readers will find a poignant narrative that begins when thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks, prompting her estranged father, Ethan, to confront his past and return home. As a convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan’s journey to reconnect with Jolie reveals the depths of their struggles and the possibility of change. The story unfolds against a backdrop of family life and coming-of-age experiences, inviting reflection on the enduring question of whether those we love can truly transform.
Official synopsis Publisher
From the New York Times bestselling author of City on Fire, an intimate epic that plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, betrayal, and redemption
“Beautiful and daring.” —Nathan Hill, author of Wellness
“Breathtaking.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
When thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear his daughter’s in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home.
So begins the journey that will, in time, push Jolie and Ethan—child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same—out past their depths.
Full of yearning and revelation, The Second Coming is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can the people we love ever really change?
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