"Catastrophe had indeed always been good for the candy business..." But what about the business of living? After the death of Bernard Livingstone, family patriarch and Jupiter Candy Company CEO, the dysfunctional Livingstone clan—Eugene and Lois and their adult children, Beth and Russ—finds that an extinction-level meteor named Janus heading for Earth may be the least of their problems.

Set in Toronto, the novel is narrated by a rotating cast of vivid characters, including Lois, a type-A philanthropist; Russ, a high school gym teacher and professional weightlifter; Maggie, an unhappy wife and host of the YouTube channel The Mannerly Mother; and Marty, a high schooler who has lost his best friend, his father, and, soon, his terminally ill brother. Before Janus smashes into the planet, ending it all, will any of them be able to say their lives have been worth living?

Redirection is funny, smart, and refreshingly original—a madcap, sprawling social novel that anatomizes the subtle relationships between family dysfunction, personal faith, and an inescapable global event.

Nicole White is a writer and research associate at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and health sciences. She lives in Newfoundland. Redirection is her first novel.

"The hilarious and flawed characters in Nicole White's Redirection do what any of us would do if a giant asteroid was on a collision course with Earth: join doomsday cults, form unwise romantic dalliances, binge eat, abandon their families, go bowling, and compulsively feed the huge raccoon who lives behind the house. In this story, it's not the asteroid that needs to be redirected, but the human beings. White handles her sprawling cast with a deft, confident hand, guiding us into the approaching apocalypse like a modern-day Joseph Heller. Get ready to laugh, cry, and squirm. This is a gutsy, audacious debut." — Darrin Doyle, author of Let Gravity Seize the Dead