From the Farthest Places: A Novel of an Empty-Nest Marriage by Gary Marks

Novel. Author: Gary Marks.

2019

Genre: Literary fiction


Sub-Genre: Empty-nest existentialism / gifted child

An empty-nest marriage fractures as Paris, their brilliant, unconventional daughter, charts a life her parents cannot comprehend. As Paris journeys farther into a world of her own, the parents are forced to confront the possibility that their connection to her might be lost forever.

Read From the Farthest Places:

When an Empty-Nest Marriage Fractures

Author: Gary Marks

A girl named Paris, the teenage daughter of a retired rock songwriter, is brilliant, eccentric, and increasingly drawn toward questioning everything. She spends her time at UC Berkeley writing quirky songs, with lyrics that are far more important to her than grades, success, stability, or the future everyone has planned for her.

As she becomes more involved in her existential questioning and drops out of college, the distance between Paris and her parents begins to widen.

Her profound intellectual and creative relationship with her father —conversations about life, mortality, and music—suddenly seems depressing, unnecessary, unsettling.

Then Paris disappears.

She is not on the run. She is running toward a life that will be more meaningful. But no one—not her parents, or even Paris herself—fully understands what that something is.

Through infrequent texts and emails Paris remains deeply connected to her father, often reaching out with songs, ideas, and fragments of hard-won insight. Yet even that bond is not enough to change the path she's compelled to follow.

As Paris travels farther into a world of her own, those left behind struggle with concerns and fears about her safety and mental well-being.

How tightly are we supposed to hold on to the people we love to keep them safe? What happens when someone's inner search takes them beyond the limits of reason?

This novel about empty-nesters and their brilliant daughter creates a powerful triptych of characters, each of whom must find their own way to keep from falling apart.

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“Where Love Cannot Follow:

Gary Marks’s From the Farthest Places,” January 2026

“From the Farthest Places is about realizing that raising a child to be fully herself may require surrendering any claim to her future.... In tracing that realization, Marks delivers a work of unusual emotional intelligence—one that understands how love can be genuine, mutual, and still be powerless against a brilliant mind determined to go where others cannot follow.” — Arts Desk Daily

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