A sweeping, panoramic novel of four strangers whose lives become interconnected through their quest to unite the engine of a vintage car with its body

A beloved car becomes a piece of us—a way back into our histories or forward into our destinies. For Emerson Tang, New England scion, that car is a 1954 Beacon. A collector—of art, of experience—Emerson keeps this prized car carefully, safely stored away. But when his archivist and caretaker, Beth Corvid, is approached by a secretive French painter determined to buy it at any cost, they discover that the Beacon has been compromised. They three, and others, will race—against one another and against time—to reunite its body and engine.

The Afterlife of Emerson Tang takes us on a thrilling tour of the last half of the twentieth century, from Modernism, Fascism, and industrialism, from Manhattan to a Zeppelin in Germany to Copenhagen to a road race in Italy, and deep into our romance with the automobile. Full of fascinating characters and historical texture, it is a novel of strangers connected across time, through a car that is so much more than a car.