"[A] searing family drama set in Kentucky where the homecoming of two half-brothers -- successful Joel with his restless wife Alice, and struggling Emmett -- ignites a clash of ambitions and desires, exposing raw truths about class, privilege, and happiness in the American South. Fulfillment tells the story of two half brothers -- Joel, a successful academic and author, whose marriage is in deep trouble, and his younger sibling Emmett, paralyzed by indecision and working on a factory assembly line -- who find themselves at their family home in Kentucky and upend each other's lives in devastating ways. Between them is Alice, Joel's wife, a wry, passionate young woman who is being slowly asphyxiated by domestic tedium, and whose longing collides with Emmett's hunger for connection and desire to escape a sense of burgeoning failure and shame. As the chemistry between them escalates, the family is plunged into a violent crucible, each character brought to a precipice of immutable catastrophe. Incisive, poignant, gorgeously written, Lee Cole has written a haunting novel about class, privilege, brotherhood, and the American South, a book that asks whether people can change, and at what cost, and what it takes to build a life of fulfillment and meaning." --