The timeline has flashback chapters in which Wayne goes on a trip with his dog to Sand Dunes National Park after his release from the hospital for his hand being blown off in the Gulf War. While there, the female park ranger tries to give him some help as he obviously is unprepared for hiking, and he lives with her while waiting for his elk-chasing dog to return.
The current timeline begins with a whale deliberately beaching itself outside the small town where Wayne now runs a diner. His 20-something daughter Julie is concerned about him and is visiting to see what help he might need to get his life back on track. At the same time, the now-grown daughter of the park ranger shows up and expects to stay at Wayne's home also.
The book starts out sounding plausible, but keeps getting more and more bizarre. The unacknowledged 'elephant in the room' is Wayne's suicidal bent, and we see that Julie has some behaviors that could use attention also.
The author tries to put this on a philosophical level by asserting that animals are committing suicide because the world is so messed up, and perhaps we are all responding to the same crisis in the world. But that small part of the book doesn't work too well for me. ( )

Strange and a bit dark, this book falls a little short for me of the four stars I've here given it -- there's some undefinable quality about the really polished books that this one's missing, though it's close -- but it was well worth a read. ( )

I received this ARC free through NetGalley in exchange for my review. This one didn’t work for me, and I struggled to finish it. The story was very disjointed and the plot did not make sense to me overall. I wasn’t sure if this was a story about a man’s struggles with PTSD or his daughter’s return home. The magical realism elements didn’t seem central to the story but only thrown in for effect. Characters were somewhat underdeveloped. ( )