Warren Ziller moved his family to California in search of a charmed
life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far
from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of Southern California in
the 1980s. But his American dream has been rudely interrupted. Despite
their affection for one another -- the "slow, jokey, unrehearsed
vaudeville" they share at home -- Warren; his wife, Camille; and their
three children have veered into separate lives, as distant as
satellites. Worst of all, Warren has squandered the family's money on a
failing real estate venture.

As Warren desperately tries to
conceal his mistake, his family begins to sow deceptions of their own.
Camille attributes Warren's erratic behavior toan affair and plots her
secret revenge; seventeen-year-old Dustin falls for his girlfriend's
troubled younger sister; teen misanthrope Lyle begins sleeping with a
security guard who works at the gatehouse; and eleven-year-old Jonas
becomes strangely obsessed with a kidnapped girl.

When tragedy
strikes, the Zillers are forced to move into one of the houses in
Warren's abandoned development in the middle of the desert. Marooned in
a less-than-model home, each must reckon with what's led them there and
who's to blame -- and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to
hold the family together. Subtly ambitious, brimming with the humor and
unpredictability of life, Model Home delivers penetrating
insights into the American family and into the imperfect ways we try to
connect, from a writer "uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and
absurdity of domestic life" (Los Angeles Times).