Harden teaches me that not living while you're alive is more terrifying than dying. But Pa Dao teaches me that not dying after you die is the greatest terror of all.
Hold on or let go? Fifteen-year-old Michael Moriarity must answer this question as tragedy thrusts him into adulthood in the fall of 2018. A devastating tornado has killed his mother, Mai Vang, and has sent his brother, Big Bad John, to a Minnesota hospital with a head injury that unveils a harrowing diagnosis.
With small-town Cottage Park, Iowa, growing smaller in the rearview mirror, Michael and his father, Puff, drive to Minneapolis's Northside-ground zero for the most severe societal-achievement gaps in the nation.
At the rec center, Michael is drawn to Jerome "Harden" Vaughn, the shining star at the center of Northside basketball and Thomas Jefferson High School. Harden christens Michael with the nickname Empty and challenges him to take his deep love for basketball to gravity-defying heights.
In the school cafeteria, Michael is drawn to Pa Dao Xiong, a rising Hmong shaman who wakes every morning to instructions from Mai Vang's spirit. Pa Dao is to teach Michael about his heritage and family while nourishing him with traditional Hmong foods.
Through it all, Michael captures his experiences in "The Empty Set," a personal narrative for his English class. He also prays for-and to-Joe Mauer, the Minnesota Twins superstar who knows when to hold on and let go of a Hall of Fame career in the fall of 2018.
But as Michael soon learns, life on the Northside balances on a razor's edge between conflict and connection, and between death and salvation. When that balance tips, will Michael know how to hold on and let go?
