Tanner’s high-adrenaline, piquantly funny, bad-to-worse novel is set in the Marshall Islands, where the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs between 1946 and 1958, subjecting the Marshallese to the unending consequences of nuclear fallout. It’s 2004 at the start of this tale of cultural dissonance, hubris, anger, loss, and resiliency, and Cooper, a talented video-game programmer, is about to join a missile-defense group on the island of Kwajalein, a military stronghold on which Marshallese are not allowed after dark. But he has a freak accident after sailing alone across the Pacific from California, following a rift with his fiancée, and begins his stay on Kwajalein in rehab after losing a leg. A bizarre diving mishap has left Alison widowed with two young sons. Jeton, an impulsive Marshallese teenager jilted by his American girlfriend, propels himself into deep trouble. And Art, the flinty cultural liaison, fights discrimination against the Marshellese. In this poisoned island paradise besieged by poverty, disease, and rising sea levels precipitated by global warming, each irresistibly self-embattled character makes grievous mistakes, suffers from regret, and plunges into disaster. Tanner (From Animal House to Our House, 2012), who lived in the Marshall Islands and launched the Marshall Islands Story Project, brings this microcosm of human folly and valor to captivating realization with bracing insights, tangy humor, profound respect, and rebounding resonance.

In the fall of 1999, my then-girlfriend and I discovered the house of our dreams: a landmark Victorian row house that had belonged to a notorious fraternity in Baltimore. Unfortunately, it was now a condemned, abandoned property. But Jill wanted the house and I wanted Jill. So I bought the 4,500-square-foot ruin, despite the fact that neither of us knew anything about home renovation, and that the project might ruin us both financially and emotionally.

The bank gave us six months to get the house up to code. The neighborhood historians told us flatly, “You’ll never bring that house back.” My realtor said, “This house will eat you alive.” Impulsive and quixotic—and with two marriages behind me—I inspired little confidence. My life seemed a series of mistakes and wrong turns, and I feared that taking on this wrecked frat house could be the biggest mistake of my life. Learning as we went, Jill and I were often at odds when working on the house, and there never seemed to be enough time, even after spending every spare moment possible restoring it. Panicked, flirting with bankruptcy, and barreling through disasters, could we learn how to live, love, and work together?

A book for lovers, dreamers, do-it-yourselfers, and fans of old houses, From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story recounts our decade-long adventure in house restoration, offering inspiration, insight, and hilarity as we hammered away at the American dream of home ownership and true love.