Arnie Tenderton spends most of the three-hour drive to the Catskills the way he spends much of every commute these days: composing, in his head, the acknowledgments for his unpublished debut novel. He begins by thanking his family, though few of them are left. He moves on to his former creative writing classmates, recognizing by name those less successful than him. He gives a gracious shout-out to an old mentor he hasn’t spoken to in years. He praises the attorney who guided his research on embezzlement. He skips his publishing team, as he doesn’t have one yet. He finishes with the person most critical to any writer’s fledgling career: the literary agent. Arnie smiles.

He glances in the rearview mirror at the boy in the back seat. Theo’s auburn hair is the same shade as his own. It flops into Theo’s eyes as he brings his book closer to his pale face. He needs a haircut again. Theo shakes the hair away, too absorbed in his fictional world to be distracted by the nuisances of the real one. On the seat next to Theo lies his winter coat, an open bag of Cheetos—forgotten ten pages ago—and a red bike helmet. Arnie’s chest swells as he takes in his kid’s Santa hat and the oversized Grinch sweater they found at a thrift store.

“What’re you reading, bud?” he asks.

Theo holds up his paperback so Arnie can see the cover—another Hardy Boys book. Theo has already torn his way through modern series for kids his age—Wimpy Kid and Dog Man and Dragon Masters—so Arnie dug out the dusty box of books from his own childhood. He was equally voracious in his youth.

“Any good?” Arnie says.