"Frances flees a painful breakup and her claustrophobic childhood home in Manhattan, which has become more airless in the aftermath of two family announcements ... She seeks refuge at a Norwegian artist colony that's offered her a painting apprenticeship ... Yasha, an eighteen-year-old Russian immigrant raised in a bakery in Brighton Beach, is kneading bread in the shop's window when he sees his mother for the first time in a decade. As he gains a selfish and unreliable parent, he loses his beloved father. He must carry out his father's last wish to be buried 'at the top of the world' and reconcile with the charismatic woman who abandoned them both. And so Frances' and Yasha's paths intersect in Lofoten, a string of five islands ninety-five miles above the Arctic Circle"--