Billy Lovell steals a Virgin Mary statue from an Irish church and presents it to Doreen Clark using a fabricated story.

Bernadette Doyle receives the Virgin Mary statue as a wedding gift and reluctantly tells her husband its family origin story.

Bernadette and Bernard Doyle adopt four-day-old Teddy, and shortly after adopt fourteen-month-old Tip.

Sullivan Doyle drives under the influence of painkillers and kills his girlfriend Natalie in a car accident.

Doyle lies to the media claiming Natalie was driving the night of Sullivan's fatal accident, ending his political career.

Tennessee Moser gives up her sons for adoption and begins secretly watching the Doyle family from a nearby housing project.

Doyle escorts a reluctant Tip and Teddy to a Jesse Jackson lecture at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Tennessee Moser pushes Tip out of an oncoming SUV's path and sustains grave injuries from the impact.

Doyle convinces a Cambridge police officer to drive his family and Kenya Moser to Mount Auburn Hospital.

Kenya Moser reveals to the Doyle family that her mother Tennessee is Tip and Teddy's biological mother.

Sullivan Doyle unexpectedly returns to the family home after years of humanitarian work in Africa.

Sullivan confesses to Tennessee at the hospital that he stole HIV medications in Uganda and caused Natalie's fatal accident.

Uncle Sullivan places his hand on Tennessee's leg and realizes her surgeons have missed a fatal internal injury.

Tip graduates from medical school at Johns Hopkins and realizes during the ceremony that pursuing medicine was a mistake.

Bernard Doyle gives Kenya the Virgin Mary statue for her twelfth birthday, as Kenya now lives in his home.

The novel begins with the Virgin Mary statue's origin as a stolen Irish heirloom, a lie-built legacy that passes through generations into the Doyle family's hands. Bernard Doyle, a former Boston mayor, adopts two Black brothers, Tip and Teddy, and steers their lives toward the political ambitions he can no longer pursue himself. A decade-old scandal involving his biological son Sullivan's fatal car accident and Doyle's subsequent lies to the press haunts the family from the margins. The crisis at the novel's heart erupts when the brothers' biological mother, Tennessee Moser, throws herself in front of an SUV to save Tip, drawing her daughter Kenya into the Doyles' world. In the frantic hours that follow, old confessions surface, a doctor's fatal oversight is discovered too late, and Tennessee's death reshapes every member of the family. Years later, Tip abandons medicine, Teddy finds purpose in politics, and Bernard gives the beloved statue to Kenya, cementing her place as the family's new heart.

The headline events driving the Doyle family story.

Doreen Clark falls in love with the Virgin Mary statue and abandons her plans to join a convent.

A man at a pub reveals that Billy Lovell stole the statue, permanently damaging his marriage with Doreen.

Bernadette's mother passes the Virgin Mary statue to Bernadette instead of her sisters, sparking intense sibling jealousy.

A doctor discovers a lump on Bernadette's neck during a routine pediatrician visit with the newly adopted boys.

Tennessee contacts the adoption agency after giving up Teddy to request the Doyles also adopt fourteen-month-old Tip.

Tip confronts Doyle after the Jesse Jackson lecture and tells him to stop pushing political careers on his sons.

Kenya rushes from the sidewalk to her injured mother's side immediately after the car accident.

Teddy sits beside Kenya in Tennessee's hospital room, trying to comfort the girl while Tennessee lies unconscious.

Unable to sleep, Sullivan takes a Percocet from Tip and walks into the snowy night with Teddy.

Kenya wakes up in the Doyle family home and plays their living room piano.

Doyle learns that Tennessee lives in the nearby Cathedral housing project and grows paranoid about her proximity to his family.

Doyle accompanies Kenya to her Cathedral housing project apartment and is deeply moved by the humble home.

Tip brings Kenya to Harvard's indoor track and convinces the skeptical security guard to let her run.

Tip's crutches slip on ice near Harvard and a frightened Kenya runs to the security guard for help.

Teddy earns a recommendation from Senator Edward Kennedy and secures admission to Georgetown University's law school.

Behind the novel's central drama lies a web of quieter but consequential moments that shape every major character. The statue's origin story unfolds through Doreen Clark's vanity and Billy Lovell's exposed lie, while Bernadette's inheritance of the heirloom triggers fresh jealousy among her sisters and sets a pattern of family secrets. Before the novel's main action, Tennessee makes the fateful choice to request that the Doyles adopt Tip after giving up Teddy, binding the families across a decade of silent distance. The night of the accident sets off a chain of small decisions — confrontations, midnight walks, and chance encounters — that draw the Doyles and the Mosers into an unexpected intimacy. In the aftermath, Kenya's presence in the Doyle home reveals contrasts of privilege that none of the Doyles had registered before, most sharply when Doyle visits her humble apartment. The novel closes with Teddy cementing his future by earning a prestigious law school recommendation, a final sign that Kenya and Tennessee's arrival transformed the family's trajectory.

Significant moments behind the scenes of the Doyle family story.

Doyle refuses Bernadette's sisters-in-law when they visit demanding the Virgin Mary statue, declaring it will pass to his sons.

Doreen becomes so over-identified with the Virgin Mary statue's beauty that she begins treating it as a daily devotional idol.

Doreen repeatedly sends Billy Lovell to return the stolen statue but secretly hopes he will never find the church.

Bernadette dies of cancer when Teddy is about five years old, leaving Bernard to raise three sons alone.

Tennessee follows Tip onto a train to Boston College, secretly watching him up close for the first time.

Tip backs carelessly into snowy traffic while arguing with Doyle outside the Kennedy School, stepping into the SUV's path.

Teddy wakes Sullivan in the night and persuades him to walk through the snow to visit Tennessee at the hospital.

Teddy hesitantly tells Sullivan during their snowy walk that he is considering joining the priesthood.

Uncle Sullivan, alone in his armchair, questions his faith and wonders if he has wasted his life serving the church.

Uncle Sullivan agrees to visit Tennessee at the hospital despite his dangerously frail health and severe shortness of breath.

Under anesthesia, Tennessee enters a vision and encounters her deceased friend Tennessee Alice Moser, who scolds her for neglecting Kenya.

Tennessee Alice Moser reveals in the vision that she died of sepsis and that Tennessee adopted both her name and her daughter.

Teddy is horrified to realize that Tennessee had been working at Uncle Sullivan's care home without Teddy ever noticing her.

Teddy commits to political advocacy and law school as a form of penance for the deaths of Tennessee and Uncle Sullivan.

Kenya hangs photographs of Tennessee and Tennessee Alice Moser beside the Virgin Mary statue in her bedroom at the Doyle home.

Run is built on layers of concealed truth, and this pool traces the moments when those layers crack open. From the very first chapter, secrets define the Doyle family: Doyle refuses to surrender Bernadette's statue to her sisters, even as the heirloom's origin in theft and deception haunts the family line. The night of the accident triggers a cascade of private reckonings — Teddy admits his priestly ambitions to Sullivan, Uncle Sullivan confronts his own fading faith alone in his armchair, and Sullivan unburdens a decade of guilt to a near-stranger in a hospital bed. The novel's most uncanny revelation arrives when Tennessee, under anesthesia, confronts the ghost of her dead friend and learns how far her own deceptions have stretched. In the novel's final movement, Teddy's horror at having overlooked Tennessee for years catalyzes a genuine transformation, and both he and Tip are forced to reckon with who they really are. The closing image — Kenya arranging photographs of two mothers beside the statue in her new bedroom — suggests that honest legacies, however painfully assembled, can outlast the lies that preceded them.