Several years ago Bruce Feiler began to notice a pattern: the old stories about the major plot points of our lives - a straight line from childhood to education to rising within a single career, having a family, and growing old with a life partner - were no longer holding true. People felt they were living their lives out of the expected order and weren't sure how to navigate everything that wasn't supposed to happen. Galvanised by a family crisis that spoke quite poignantly to this loss of meaning, Feiler set out on what became an epic journey to harvest American life stories and see what he could learn from them.