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On graduation night, the road less traveled leads to a new understanding between friends and family.

Thomas' life is pretty well mapped out for him. It's graduation night, and he's expected to report to the recruitment officer the next morning to follow his father’s and brother's footsteps into the Army. But Thomas has other plans. He's seen what being a soldier did to his brother, Jake, who can't function even as the town greets him as a hero. Thomas doesn't want to end up that way. He's willing to run away from everything familiar to avoid the same fate. But then his old friend Mallory needs his help figuring out how she really feels about her boyfriend, and graduation night takes on a whole new meaning as Thomas and Mallory reconnect, remember, reveal, and discover that the paths they'd chosen might not be the right ones after all. Bliss offers a well-crafted story about the people who come home from war damaged and the family members this affects. Slipping deftly between past and present time frames, Bliss creates a three-dimensional landscape of broken characters without losing a presiding sense of hope, grounding his story in a rural, white North Carolina community where trucks are king.

A love story between brothers, the novel provides a touching glimpse of a different kind of courage.