It's been two years since aspiring novelist and English teacher Malcolm Aton has had any contact with his family. Ever since his divorce and the loss of his mother to cancer, his relationship with his father has been strained.

When he receives an urgent text from his brother, he learns the devastating news that their father's memory issues have progressed. He's now violent and at the end stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Although confrontation with his father is imminent, Malcolm reluctantly agrees to return home for the weekend and take on the mantle of caregiver while they contend with the difficult decision of how to care for their father. As is the case with everything involving his family, nothing goes as expected.

Unapologetically honest, Renewal is the story of a family learning to cope with the crippling diseases of cancer and Alzheimer's, of allowing old wounds to heal, of a patriarch coming to terms with the deterioration of his memory and identity, and of Malcolm coming into his own by taking on the ultimate responsibility of caregiver.