Jasper Fisher drives his unconscious, laboring mother Rachel to veterinarian Thomas Kennedy's home and refuses to let Thomas call an ambulance.

Thomas uses a lambing snare to deliver an eighteen-pound, twenty-seven-inch baby boy from the dying Rachel.

The newborn Gabriel nurses from Rachel's breast in the moments before she dies.

Hannah attends Rachel's small English-style funeral, where she encounters Thomas Kennedy and Billy Walton for the first time.

After the funeral, Thomas integrates himself into Jasper and Gabriel's lives and becomes a steady father figure to both boys.

Gabriel meets his grandmother Hannah for the first time when Thomas is called to the Fisher farm for a sick goat.

Gabriel returns home with Thomas one evening to make the shocking discovery that Jasper has hanged himself in the barn.

After Jasper's suicide, Gabriel goes to live with his grandparents Hannah and Josiah on their Amish farm.

High school football coach Trey Beathard seeks out the eight-foot-tall Gabriel and convinces him to join his team.

Gabriel's team wins the state championship, and he accepts a full football scholarship to the University of Wisconsin.

Gabriel suffers a catastrophic knee injury in college, and a torn artery forces the amputation of his right leg above the knee.

Gabriel becomes an international professional wrestling superstar under the persona 'Anakim, the Amish Giant.'

Hannah finds a letter from Absalom confessing that he raped Rachel, fathered Jasper, and took his own life by fire.

Gabriel calls from Spain to say he has gone blind and been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Gabriel dies on the patio as thousands of animals gather and a massive swarm of fireflies envelops him in blinding light.

The story opens with a teenager driving his unconscious, laboring mother to a veterinarian's door, where Thomas Kennedy delivers a giant baby named Gabriel before Rachel dies. Thomas becomes a surrogate father to Gabriel and his brother Jasper, but when Jasper takes his own life, Gabriel goes to live with his Amish grandparents. A football coach recognizes Gabriel's unprecedented gifts and launches him into national fame, culminating in a state championship and a college scholarship. A catastrophic leg amputation ends his athletic career, and Gabriel reinvents himself as a professional wrestler before a terminal diagnosis draws him home. Hannah's discovery of her father's confession casts a dark shadow over the final chapter, but the community rallies around Gabriel in his last days. He dies in a moment of miraculous wonder, surrounded by family and by thousands of animals drawn to his extraordinary spirit.

The headline events that define Gabriel Fisher's extraordinary life from birth to death.

Thomas Kennedy moves to the isolated town of Lakota, Wisconsin, fleeing the notoriety surrounding his wife Angela's suspicious death.

Hannah's volatile father Absalom shears off her sister Meg's hair in front of the family as punishment for vanity.

Rachel is excommunicated from the Amish community through streng meidung after becoming pregnant and refusing to name the father.

A local widow named Charlotte Chesterfield takes the shunned Rachel in and eventually wills her entire farm to her.

Unable to openly visit Rachel, Hannah secretly watches her shunned daughter and grandson Jasper from across the river.

Young Gabriel demonstrates a remarkable ability to calm distressed animals, astonishing everyone who witnesses it.

Billy Walton signs the young Gabriel up for T-ball, where the boy's extraordinary size and power immediately amaze onlookers.

Hannah secretly attends one of Gabriel's T-ball games to watch the grandson she cannot openly acknowledge.

Gabriel's power at the plate seriously injures another young player, prompting his move to an older league.

Josiah and Thomas reach a compromise: Thomas will attend monthly dinners rather than taking Gabriel out on veterinary calls.

In college, Gabriel falls in love with a fellow student named Isabella Alvarez, who goes by Bella.

Gabriel returns home from college covered in tattoos, leading a horrified Hannah to ask Thomas to take him in.

Gabriel accepts a lucrative professional wrestling offer, and Hannah gives him an embroidered dish towel as a farewell gift.

Bella Alvarez arrives at Thomas's house with her and Gabriel's two-year-old son Raphael, bringing Gabriel a final period of joy.

Hannah returns to Josiah to help raise Raphael while Thomas sells his house to Bella and drives west toward Montana.

Thomas Kennedy arrives in Lakota already carrying grief, while the Fisher family tree has long been marked by Absalom Yoder's cruelty and Rachel's quiet resilience. Rachel's excommunication and Charlotte Chesterfield's generosity shape the home and farm that Gabriel inherits, and Hannah watches her grandchildren grow from a painful distance. Gabriel's childhood gifts — calming distressed animals, overpowering every opponent in youth baseball — foreshadow the greatness and danger to come, and Hannah observes it all from the shadows. As Gabriel settles into Amish life, careful compromises are struck between old and new worlds, and he eventually falls in love in college before injury reshapes everything. Gabriel leaves for professional wrestling over Hannah's heartbreak, but ultimately returns home to die, with new life arriving in Bella and Raphael. The story closes with Hannah making the hardest choice of her life, and Thomas pointing his truck west toward something new.

The supporting moments and characters that quietly shaped Gabriel's world from the very beginning.

After her mother's death, Hannah secretly reads a hidden book of Emily Dickinson's poems, opening a private inner world.

During her Rumspringa, Rachel visits Billy Walton's tavern — the first sign of her desire to experience the outside world.

Josiah relents and arranges secret meetings between Hannah and her shunned daughter Rachel and grandson Jasper.

Rachel becomes pregnant with her second child, a difficult pregnancy that will ultimately claim her life.

Thomas observes that Gabriel's physical growth far exceeds anything normal, defying all biological expectation.

Josiah grows deeply troubled by Gabriel's pride and his ongoing relationship with the English world through Thomas.

A flood of media attention and college recruiters descends on Lakota as Gabriel's football dominance brings national fame.

Thomas invites Hannah to travel to Chicago to watch Gabriel's American professional wrestling debut.

Thomas and Hannah visit the Art Institute of Chicago together, and their emotional bond deepens significantly.

Hannah is horrified by mock-Amish costumes in the crowd and Gabriel wielding his prosthetic leg as a weapon; she insists they leave.

On the drive home from Chicago, Thomas reveals that his wife Angela deliberately placed herself under his truck.

Absalom's body is found in the burned ruins of his home, and authorities officially rule his death an accident.

Meg confirms to Hannah that Absalom abused her too, and Hannah confronts Josiah about whether he knew of the depravity.

Feeling betrayed by all, Hannah leaves Josiah and moves into Thomas's house; their friendship eventually deepens into romance.

Billy Walton organizes local townspeople into a blockade around Thomas's house to protect the dying Gabriel from the media.

Hidden poems and forbidden meetings form the quiet fabric of Hannah's inner life long before the story's main events unfold, and Rachel's Rumspringa signals the first break in the Amish order that will define the family's fate. Josiah's decision to allow secret visits with the shunned Rachel is an early act of mercy, but Rachel's second, difficult pregnancy sets a tragic course in motion. Gabriel's impossible growth and Josiah's unease with the English world create tensions that simmer beneath the surface of the boy's rise to football fame. A trip to Chicago for Gabriel's wrestling debut becomes the pivot point where Thomas and Hannah's bond deepens and the cracks in Hannah's world first appear. Absalom's self-immolation and the confession he leaves behind shatter Hannah's understanding of her entire family, forcing a reckoning with Josiah and driving her into Thomas's home and heart. The story ends with the community protecting Gabriel in his final days, and Hannah choosing duty over love in a heartbreaking farewell.

The discoveries and decisions that change everything for Hannah, Thomas, and Gabriel.