Meet Karl Floor: friendless, orphaned, melancholy, living with his loudmouth stepfather and sleepwalking through his job as a high schoolmath teacher. Karl returns home one day to discover his house being robbed by a beautiful stranger named Sylvia. So begins a darkly funny tale: Sylvia, aware that Karl is falling for her, draws him into her mysterious world and extracts a promise from him to protect her, though she won't say exactly from whom, or what. As he becomes more enmeshed in her life, he begins more clearly to see the shape and limits of his own.

Against the multilayered social canvas of Long Island and Brooklyn, Karl slowly and uncertainly comes to terms with the complexities of race and class, his parentage, and his own responsibilities as a man, emerging as a memorable and heartwarming antihero. Addressing heady themes with warmth and charisma, You Were Wrong is a satiric, intelligent, and deeply enjoyable novel with a singular voice.