""Commonwealth is the story of two broken families and the paths their lives take over the course of 40 years, through love and marriage, death and divorce, and a dark secret from childhood that lies underneath it all""-- ""The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern...

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence.

When a number of rich men come to a mysterious end, and a young investment banker dies of a supposed heart attack, FBI agent John O'Hara believes it is the work of a cold-blooded killer. Turning his eye to the only witness - the young banker's beautiful and secretive widow - O'Hara thinks he's closing in, but he's not sure whether he's pursuing justice or his own fatal obsession.

After her father finds her having sex with his twenty-year-old farmhand, sixteen-year-old Anna and her adopted sister Claire find their lives changing and going in separate directions.