The Resolutions

Part One

Samantha

She stood in a thicket of trees at the edge of campus, this place she now called home, a Russian dance company two hundred kilometers northeast of Moscow. The sun hung low in the sky, dropping with the temperature, and her toes were numb from hiking through snow. She d been gone all afternoon, and now she was late for the dinner party, which posed a significant problem because prolonged absences didn t go unnoticed at a place like this. Nikolai, the director of the company, presided over his dancers with the omniscience of a cult leader, and Sam knew she would need a good excuse to explain her disappearance. Unfortunately, no one was buying her excuses anymore.

Nikolai s father was a steel oligarch who had purchased the estate as a summer retreat for his family, but then the family stopped speaking to one another so Nikolai claimed it for himself. He amassed a roster of choreographers and dancers from across the globe, and hired a team of contractors to refurbish the grounds. He erected a dozen small cottages little two-bedroom units the dancers shared and commissioned a famous architect to design the studio space, a three-thousand-square-foot glass cube situated amid dense conifer forest. Nikolai referred to the property as Château Oksana named for his mother but everyone else called it campus. Sam imagined it was the closest thing she would ever have to a proper college experience, probably not so different from those fancy private academies in New England. She slept in what was essentially a well-appointed dorm room, attended classes at a rehearsal space rather than a lecture hall, and took her meals in an upscale cafeteria. Even now, in mid-December, everything blanketed in a foot of snow, the grounds were impeccably groomed, the sidewalks brushed and cleared, the trees hung with decorative lights. There was an onsite staff to attend to the dancers needs, nothing more than a phone call away, yet it was a suffocating kind

Brady Hammes is a writer and documentary film editor living in Los Angeles. The Resolutions is his first novel.

A vivid literary thrill ride that adroitly connects D-list Hollywood, Russian ballet, Gabonese elephant conservation, Christmas, drug addiction, and adult siblinghood s awkward first steps . . . Take the journey. The pages will fly by. Matthew Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook and The Reason You re Alive
 
This smartly written tale of three dysfunctional siblings in trouble is fast-paced, witty, and engaging full of wry wit and insight into the bonds between brothers and sisters. Brady Hammes is an exciting new talent. Dan Chaon, New York Times bestselling author of Ill Will
 
The Resolutions is touching and thrilling in the most unexpected ways as two brothers, one an out-of-work actor, the other a research scientist in Africa, different as Cain and Abel, join forces to save their sister, a ballerina whose addiction to heroin is killing her. Taking you from a Russian dance campus to the poacher-riddled thick of Gabon, The Resolutions will have you sitting on the edge of your seat, wanting to call your family to say you love them. And to tell them you know exactly what they should read next. Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of At the Water s Edge
 
A harrowing tale of three far-flung siblings in crisis, The Resolutions is ultimately a sustained celebration of family in a chaotic world. With assured prose and compassion, Brady Hammes has crafted a debut as wise as it is engaging. Smith Henderson, author of Fourth of July Creek
 
Brady Hammes makes a wildly diverse trio of siblings utterly convincing and their story utterly absorbing. The Resolutions is an imaginative and engrossing novel from a splendid new writer. Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Perfume River and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Hammes gives readers three sympathetic, compelling characters trying to find themselves as they