Bob Miller has created the paradise he always dreamed of: a farm high in a valley, three miles from the nearest town, where he and his wife Liz live and raise their seven-year-old son, Tommy, growing their own food, spinning and weaving their clothes, making their own furniture. He built the house they live in himself, with no phone or TV, no car, no daily connection to the outside world other than Tommy's daily commutes to school. That's where they live, Bob thinks, and that's where they'll always live.

Bob and Liz are proud of the self-sufficient lifestyle they have chosen, but if there is one thing that Bob is truly proud of, it is Tommy, that enthusiastic, receptive, obedient boy who is willing to be guided by his father. That's why he would never have imagined that one day his son would be able to grab two dolls of a classmate and destroy them. However, that day he arrives and a chill runs through Bob. Something is wrong, really wrong, and he hasn't seen it coming.

In The Best Will, a sudden outburst of violence is the trigger that will shake the foundations of the apparent family Eden of the Millers. In a narrative that moves inexorably to a shocking finale, Jane Smiley, with her distinctive talent for portraying family relationships, dives into the fears and hopes we place in our children, and once again highlights the ways in which, Without realizing it, we undermine our own dreams, even when acting with the best of intentions.