The links that connect brothers

In any case, Chaon is more interested in our desire to understand the harrowing gap between what we want to be and what we are. For Jonah's mother, that desire leads only to corrosive regret and self-pity. But for Jonah, permanently masked behind a thicket of scars, the dream of remaking himself remains a tantalizing possibility.

When his mother dies, Jonah discards every possession, every remnant of his past, and sets out for a new city armed only with a copy of "The Fifteen Steps on the Ladder of Success." Chaon describes this quest with poignancy and muffled wit. Jonah's habit of making up memories, designing for himself a more usable past, seems oddly touching. You don't have to be a fellow loser (or do you?) to sympathize with his practice of overanticipating events and rehearsing conversations before they take place. He draws up lists of his meager good qualities, he practices friendly gestures in the mirror, he watches happy people and imagines what it would be like to be them.

His physical condition is peculiar and his mental state is a weird mixture of grief and optimism, but Chaon's portrayal of this hopeful loner strikes notes that will resonate with anyone who hankers for a new beginning, who vacillates between bouts of confidence and despair. "The true terror," Jonah thinks, "the true mystery of life, is not that we were all going to die, but ... that we once didn't exist, and then, through no fault of our own, we had to."

His plan to remake himself depends on finding his older brother, the baby his mother spent her life mourning. We meet Troy long before Jonah does, first as a sweet adolescent slipping into drug addiction, then as an anxious father struggling to drop the habit and regain custody of his son. Unlike Jonah, Troy remains far less definite about the prime cause of his troubles, but he's just as determined to change his direction, to make something of himself.

The eventual contact between these two brothers arrives in a fascinating, long-delayed crisis, fraught with expectations that Troy can't possibly satisfy for Jonah. The ghastly looking stranger who imagines the benefits of instant fraternity is bound to be disappointed, but Jonah has invested so much psychic energy in this great hope that he loses touch with reality rather than let go of his dream.

Chaon sinks gently and quietly into these sad lives, but moments of real fright spike through his narrative, and the poignancy of Jonah's desire for connection shifts ominously toward much darker tones. Fortunately, this is an author of deep compassion. Not all his characters attain the insight they need to fathom their hopes and fears, but a few do, and his readers will come closer to understanding their own.

• Ron Charles is the Monitor's book editor. Send e-mail comments about the book section toRon Charles.

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