That possibility disappeared when the Chargers’ season went to pieces.

“To let the baby out, you have to be willing to go to pieces,” she writes of childbirth.

A brilliant bunch, they’re nonetheless going to pieces, and pulling them back together has become Winter’s task — as well as the primary tension of this 600-page novel.

"You might go to pieces afterwards. But on the scene, you've got to be calm and collected, to get on and do the job that you're there to do."

It’s simultaneously uptight and gone to pieces, lakeside and volcanic.