This Room Is Made of Noise

While trying to drum up additional work, down-on-his-luck handyman Don Lank spies an imitation Tiffany lamp shining in the front window of a house. He offers the elderly widow who answers the door $800 for itknowing he can sell it to a dealer for several hundred dollars more than that. Only the lamp turns out to be realand worth at least $15,000. Feeling both delighted by and guilty about his good fortune, Don returns most of the money to the original owner, Millie Prall. He also offers to make a few repairs around her deteriorating housemaking it easier and safer for her to navigate the space in the wake of her husband's death. As Millies dementia worsens, Don finds his life more and more enmeshed with hers, driving her to medical appointments, shopping for her groceries, cooking her meals, handling her finances, and increasingly overseeing her carewhile simultaneously trying to repair his relationships with his father, his ex-wife, and his stepkids. In this quietly mesmerizing novel, no one, including the protagonist, is ever entirely sure of their motivations. Existing in the liminal spaces between altruism and greed, This Room Is Made of Noise deftly explores the shades of gray that lie between our desires and our demons.