For Norman Price, in the midst of his own crisis, the financial crisis was a distraction signifying there were no longer any essential truths, no longer a beginning, middle, or end to events; a realization that eclipsed, among other things, the passing of his parents. Chicago, 2008. In the wake of cataclysmic events - both personal and international - Norman Price decides it's time for a new existence. But when a couple of bombshells are dropped onto his tentative new path, Norman's New Existence is suddenly threatened by past secrets. Michael Collins takes post 9/11 America as the background for a deeply moving novel about the fragility of humanity.