In Recapitulation, the sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City and tries to sort out his childhood and youth. He is well off, successful in his line of work, and yet insecure. His having remained unmarried suggests that he never quite let go of his obsession with his mother — that he never quite grew up. In this novel, he tries to understand his parents and reconcile their world with the one in which he lives forty years later.