Edward is nearly four years old when he begins his slow, painful withdrawal from the world. For those who love him — his father, Jack, and mother, Rachel, pregnant with their third child — the transformation of their happy, intelligent firstborn into a sleepless, feral stranger is a devastating blow, one that brings enormous ramifications not just for Edward and his parents, but also for their younger son, Matt, and soon-to-be-born daughter.

A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards follows this nuclear family as Rachel and Jack try to come to terms with their son's descent into autism (or something like it) and struggle to sustain their marriage under this unanticipated strain. Threaded through the novel, too, is the story of Rachel's deceased uncle Mickey, who may have suffered from a similar disorder at a time when parenting, pediatrics, and ideas about child psychology were entirely different from today's. As Rachel delves into her own family history in search of answers, flashbacks to Mickey's life afford moving insight into the nature of childhood disorders and the coping mechanisms of different families.

A spellbinding, brilliantly nuanced portrait of a marriage and a family, this compelling drama also poses provocative, real-life questions: How much should a mother sacrifice for her children? How much intervention is too much? When do parents' ambitions for their offspring become counterproductive, even destructive? Who should decide what is best for the child? Is it ever worth sacrificing a marriage for a child?

A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards is a carefully crafted, compulsively readable, emotional page-turner that reveals a remarkable gift for language and storytelling and enormous insight into the complexities and dilemmas of domestic life and parenthood. It is a striking exploration of love, faith, and sacrifice that will resonate with readers everywhere.

"Bauer's nuanced debut chronicles a mother's struggle with her child's mysterious, undiagnosed illness and the once-passionate marriage that doesn't survive the decades of extraordinary stress. Love, marriage and babies follow quickly from Rachel and Jack's first electric meeting, when Rachel is a 20-year-old student at a small Minnesota college and Jack an itinerant worker. But when Edward, the eldest of their three children, turns four, he suddenly transforms from a bright, animated boy to a zombie who goes weeks without sleeping, stares endlessly at his hand and howls to fill a silent room. Settled in Minneapolis, Rachel and Jack try various doctors, codeine and even marijuana tea for their son, who is often mistaken for an autistic, but he stays locked in what he calls, during moments of lucidity, 'the nowhere place.' Bauer follows the family through Edward's adolescence: Jack struggles with alcoholism and holding down a job while Rachel, a journalist, binds the family together with fierce mother-love. Throughout, Rachel attempts to unravel the mystery of her long-deceased Uncle Mickey, a strange, troubled man whose plight might hold a clue to Edward's disease. Bauer's prose often pierces with authentic, unsentimental power, but blow-by-blow chronological plotting diminishes the novel's grace. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards brilliantly and entertainingly portrays a family's emotional turbulence and the painful fact that much of a parent's life is fully and completely consumed with the stress and emotional trauma of having an atypical child in our society. Ann Bauer's gift of empathy clearly shines throughout the pages of this novel."

-- Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D., cofounder of the Autism Research Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and coauthor of Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope That Can Transform a Child's Life

"Ann Bauer has written a novel of seasons and cycles. They take place within the body of a woman, inside the mind of her child, and during the life of a marriage. The core of the story is a little boy at risk who is composed without a single sentimental note. Ms. Bauer writes him, and her other memorable characters, with courageous precision."

-- Frederick Busch, author of Girls and The Night Inspector

"This is a phenomenal first novel, a story of mother love and ferocity and doggedness, told with delicacy and humor. A writer waits years for a book so true as this, so knowing, so sure-footed. Any parent of an odd and troubled kid will know the shape of the terrain from the first page to the end."

-- Garrison Keillor, author of Lake Wobegon Days and host of A Prairie Home Companion

"This novel is so good, so strong, so truthful, and every parent who reads it will say, 'Yes, this is how it is.' I read it with my heart in my mouth, and put it down with a sense of real loss."

-- Elizabeth Buchan, author of Everything She Thought She Wanted and Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

"Ann Bauer has written a beautiful book about a very difficult situation — a child who is different from the rest. Her voice is sincere and honest, her prose lyric, and her story unforgettable."

-- Chris Offutt, author of The Same River Twice

"In writing about the passions and sacrifices of motherhood, Ann Bauer has given us a novel that goes deeply and bravely into the heart of one family, showing outsiders what it's like on the inside. A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards is original and astonishing."

-- Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife and The Position