A house falls apart. A child learns the meaning of windows. A family silently wrestles a disappearing closeness. A childhood unknowingly sits in the palms of the man next door. How to Build a House follows a childhood in its last twelve hours. In the crooked language of a household, the novel tracks the slight displacements of existence which cause these hours to differ from all others. The fragments of a man, the quiet remnants of parents and the slivers of memory are delicately assembled as the child makes her way through time.