This dazzlingly ambitious novel introduces us to the unforgettable Haven family of Akron, Ohio. This is not your typical Midwestern family and Lowell Haven is a most unusual patriarch. He's a seducer, a fake aristorcrat and a liar. Jenny, his former wife, was a brilliant artist but is today a broken woman with a secret. In the thirty years since Jenny and Lowell met, Lowell has become a world-famous artist. But five years ago, Lowell mysteriously stopped painting and the world wants to know why he has abandoned his art. The answer lies with Merit, Lowell and Jenny's daughter, who is running as fast as she can from her family. Fergus, Lowell's boyfriend, Jenny's ex-best friend and drama queen extraordinaire, dreams of luring Merit home: the enormous faux-Tudor mansion where he lives with Lowell. Stretching from mid-seventies London to the present-day Midwest, The Coast of Akron is the incisively funny and deeply heartbreaking story about the all-too-human desire to own what is unownable.