Books like Last things by Jenny Offill

Grace Davitt lives in a small lakeside Vermont town with her mother Anna, an ornithologist who believes a monster once roamed the local lake, and her father Jonathan, a rationalist who holds science as the sole truth. Grace spends her days photographing the mysterious dark waters in the hope of seeing the vanished creature again. She is drawn into a tapestry of wonder through lessons from her boy‑genius babysitter about invisible black holes, from Anna’s tales of hyenas in Africa, and from encyclopedic accounts of children raised by wolves and spontaneous combustion. As Anna’s obsession grows, Grace finds herself torn between her mother’s mythic world and her father’s insistence on order. A journey that leads her to New Orleans, Nevada, and a lighthouse‑shaped hotel in California ultimately brings her back to Vermont, where she must decide where her loyalties truly lie.

First publish date: 1999