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And at this point in the novel (which comes fairly early), you have to make a choice as a reader: Do you believe that Henry is suffering through an increasingly destructive mental illness? Or do you believe that his love for Val was so strong, his need for her so great, that the loss of her has shattered the structural underpinnings of the universe? That he has, in his misery, been given the ability to move back and forth through time in order to try and win her back?

Which side of that line you fall on may surprise you. You'll believe in the reality of Henry's smashed-up timeline(s) one minute, then know for sure that the 80-year-old Henry at the kitchen table and the 41-year-old Henry in the park are just figments generated by the unbalanced mind of a 19-year-old Henry. The line between fantasy and reality will be completely blurred before you're done.

And this, in turn, will allow you to sink into the clean, precise style of Ferguson's writing. He has a way with the language (in particular the lyrical bits of it, the odd, dangly details of lived-in lives), but the cleverest trick he pulls is in never modulating his voice or tone. Any contextual clues as to the reality (or unreality) of any given moment have been scrubbed from the text, and it all plays out in a constant state of fluttering, haloed authenticity. You can taste the weedy, sour first beers that Val and Gabe share months after Henry's disappearance, hear the jangling syncopation of the songs in Henry's head, and smell the mold in the shower. Ferguson never shies away.

And whether the narrative is tracking Val's very real present, Gabe's guilt-stricken, infected, half-fantastical now, or any of the multitude of Henrys populating the past, present and future, Ferguson does not judge. He does not coddle. He simply tells his tale and lets it lie there, as beautiful and broken as anything else in the world, its veracity to be judged by those who can only look in from the outside.

Jason Sheehan is an ex-chef, a former restaurant critic and the current food editor of Philadelphia magazine. But when no one is looking, he spends his time writing books about spaceships, aliens, giant robots and ray guns. Tales From the Radiation Age is his newest book.

Read an excerpt of The Lost Boys Symphony

Doctors who treat Medicare patients will face a huge cut, 21 percent, if Congress doesn't act by the end of the month. This isn't a new problem. While Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill agree that the formula that pays doctors who treat Medicare patients has long been broken, over the years they've been unable to pass more than temporary patches.

But the leaders of the House from both parties have come up with a plan that they think can fix a problem that has bedeviled Congress since 1997. On Thursday, it goes to the House floor for a vote.

If Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner win and their plan becomes law, it would kill what's known on Capitol Hill as the "doc fix," a near-annual exercise. Here's how it works: It would repeal what's called the sustainable growth rate formula, or SGR. Instead, Medicare would increase payments to doctors by one-half of one percent each year through 2019. After that, a system would kick in where doctors would receive bonuses and penalties depending on performance scores from the government.

"We as physicians, look we want to be paid on basically how well our patient does and that creates some challenges because you've got to have buy in for the patient but we know these systems work and they save money," said GOP Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) is a long-time physician who heads up the House Republican Doctors Caucus.

"I can almost say that with this passage I will have had a successful Congressional career up to date. I really believe it's that important," Roe, who said he was involved in the negotiations, said. "It's the first real change to Medicare in almost the last 20 years."

Boehner and Pelosi's plan would also extend funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program for two more years.

And on Wednesday it gained a powerful ally: President Obama.

"As we speak Congress is working to fix the medicare physician payment system," Obama said during an event marking the fifth anniversary of the federal health care law. "I've got my pen ready to sign a good bipartisan bill"

Later in the day, the administration followed up with a formal statement of support.

Though the bill has the White House's backing and bipartisan support in the House, it hit a snag in the Senate where some Democrats worry about language that would restrict abortions at community health centers.

Pelosi has said that the restrictions included in the bill are not a change in current policy. The bill also has the support of the chairs of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, which boasts 170 members.

"The language included in the bipartisan compromise does not further restrict women's access to abortion and the provisions expire along with funding – just as the current Hyde Amendment does," Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) said in a joint statement. "We will be supporting this bipartisan compromise, and we encourage other members of the Pro-Choice Caucus to do the same."

Still groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America remain opposed to the bill.

Lingering over the debate on the Medicaid provision was another fight in the Senate, over a human trafficking bill currently being blocked by Democrats over abortion language.

But this week, some Senate Democrats including Democratic Leader Harry Reid looked to differentiate between the two. Reid told reporters Tuesday that "the two provisions in the two bills are different. They're not the same, dealing with abortion."

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that she planned to support the Medicare bill too

"My objection in the trafficking bill is that this is private money, not a government fund, so it would establish a new precedent and that's what I don't want to do," she said.

While the debate over abortion-related language was the sticking point among Senate Democrats, there is also the question of cost.

According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the bill would cost more than $200 billion over the next decade. The bill would add more than $140 billion to the federal budget deficit. And that's despite some savings that would come from higher premiums for some Medicare beneficiaries and cuts to providers like hospitals and nursing homes.

This tax season, for the first time since the Affordable Care Act passed five years ago, consumers are facing its financial consequences.

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Whether they owe a penalty for not having health insurance , or have to figure out whether they need to pay back part of the subsidy they received to offset the cost of monthly insurance premiums, many people have to contend with new tax forms and calculations.

Christa Avampato, for example, bought a silver plan on the New York health insurance exchange last year. Initially, the 39-year-old was surprised and pleased to learn that she qualified for a $177 premium tax credit that is available to people with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The tax credit, which was sent directly to her health insurer every month, reduced the monthly premium she paid for her $400 plan to $223.

But a big check from a client at the end of last year pushed the self-employed consultant and content creator's income higher than she had estimated. When she filed her 2014 income taxes earlier this month she got the bad news: She must repay $750 of the tax credit she'd received.

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Obamacare 'Glitch' Puts Subsidies Out Of Reach For Many Families

Avampato, who has moved to Florida, paid the bill out of her savings. Since her higher income meant she also owed more money on her federal and state income taxes, repaying the tax credit for her health plan was "just rubbing salt in the wound," Avampato says.

But she's not complaining. The tax credit made her health insurance much more affordable. Going forward, she says, she'll just keep in mind that repayment is a possibility.

It's hard for many people to perfectly estimate their annual income in advance, and changes in family status — such as marriage or divorce —can also throw off that estimate. The size of the premium tax credit is based on a family's income.

Like Avampato, 52 percent of people who enrolled in health insurance plans on the exchanges had to repay part of the subsidy they'd received to offset premiums. That's according to an analysis by H&R Block of the first six weeks of returns filed through the tax preparer. The average repayment was $530, while about a third of marketplace enrollees got a tax credit refund of $365, on average, according to H&R Block.

The amount that people have to repay has a cap that's based on their income. People whose income tops 400 percent of poverty ($45,960 for an individual) have to repay the entire premium tax credit.

The message for taxpayers is clear: If your income or family status changes, go back to the insurance marketplace now — and as necessary throughout the year — to make adjustments so you can minimize repayment issues when 2015 taxes are due.

Shots - Health News

How The Affordable Care Act Pays For Insurance Subsidies

Some people owe a penalty for not having health insurance. For 2014, the penalty is the greater of $95 or 1 percent of income. The H&R Block analysis found that the average penalty people paid for not having insurance was $172.

Consumers who learn they owe a penalty when they file their 2014 taxes can qualify for a special enrollment period to buy 2015 coverage, if they haven't already done so. That would protect them against a penalty on their next return.

Also, tax filers may be able to avoid the penalty by qualifying for an exemption.

Tax preparers often use software to help them complete people's returns, and the software includes the forms to apply for exemptions. For the most part, the software is up to the task, says Tara Straw, a health policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who manages a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site in the District of Columbia. But it comes up short with some of the more complicated calculations, she says.

A case in point: applying for the exemption from the health insurance requirement because coverage is unaffordable. Under the health law, if the minimum amount people would have to pay for employer coverage or a bronze level health plan is more than 8 percent of their household's income they don't have to buy insurance. That situation is likely to be one of the most common reasons for claiming an exemption.

But to figure out whether someone qualifies, the software would have to incorporate details such as the cost of the second lowest-cost silver plan available in that region, as well as the lowest cost bronze plan. The software can't do that, so tax preparers must complete the information by hand.

"That one, in particular," Straw says, "has been vexing."

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Here's what we know this morning about the German jetliner that crashed Tuesday into a mountainside in the French Alps, killing 150 people on board.

— French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the cockpit voice recorder from Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 is damaged, but could still tell us why the plane went down. Segolene Royale, France's energy minister, said the key to the investigation was what happened in the two-minute span that began at 10:30 a.m. local time Tuesday. That's when the plane began to descend after reaching cruising altitude. And Transportation Minister Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio that investigators will focus "on the human voices, the conversations" on the voice recorder, followed by the cockpit sounds.

— Cazeneuve reiterated today that it was unlikely the plane was blown up.

"Every theory must be considered while the inquiry goes on," he said. "An explosion is not the No. 1 suspected cause because the debris from the plane is concentrated in an area of about 1 hectares. It's certainly a wide area because of the violence of the impact, but it shows that the plane probably didn't blow up."

— Ground crews are slowly making their way through new snow and rain to the scene to recover the bodies of the victims of the flight that was traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany.

— Francis Hermitte, the mayor of Seyne-Les-Alpes, a town close to the site of the crash, says families are expected to arrive at the town today. The leaders of France, Germany and Spain will meet them there, he said.

— We learned on Tuesday that the victims of the crash included two babies, 16 German high-schoolers and their two teachers. Two opera singers were among the victims, multiple news reports say. Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said at least three Britons were among the victims. He said that number could rise. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said an Israeli citizen who lived in Spain was among the victims.

— Employees of Germanwings and Lufthansa, the low-cost carrier's parent company, around the world will hold a minute of silence at 10.53 a.m. today, Lufthansa said. That's when the contact with the flight was lost.

germanwings Flight 4U 9525

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