In her most powerful book yet, award-winning writer Idra Novey has conjured a novel of "astonishing and singular" honesty.

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who has sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she has revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition.

But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.

With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulties of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits. Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passion and resonance, illuminating what can be built from what others have discarded—art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.