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KIRKUS
Our verdict: Get it!
A reluctant prodigal daughter returns to her dysfunctional family in Kaye's debut literary novel.
Erin has spent the last six years abroad, teaching English in Spain, France, Japan. Now, she's back home in Maine for Christmas, for the first time in years. Her abusive father, Thomas, made it clear that Erin, a lesbian, was not welcome in the house, but her mother, Janet, recently ended the marriage, then invited Erin to come home for the holiday. "Just us three girls," says Janet, including Erin's younger sister, sixth grader Beth-though Thomas tends to show up at night drunk and sit in his car in front of the house. Erin bickers with Janet even as she helps her mother get on her feet-setting her up a bank account, making her a resume to apply for jobs-but when it becomes clear her father is trying to reconcile, Erin-who isn't ready to forgive-leaves for Mexico. She takes a bus to Arizona, where her drinking and her guilt over abandoning Beth get the better of her. She stops in Tucson to attend some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. With the help of her no-nonsense sponsor, Maggie, Erin attempts to make sense of her life up to this point, beginning with the tumult of her parents' marriage. As Janet plans to come down to Tucson to visit her, Erin must consider the possibility that she didn't have one abusive parent, but two. Kaye captures Erin's complex emotional journey with elegant, salt-of-the-earth economy. "They have a saying about people who keep running away," Janet tells Erin at one point. "Things catch up with you sooner or later." While many aspects of Erin's situation and her reactions to it-substance abuse, sabotaged love, solo travel, motorcycles-may strike the reader as slightly predictable, Kaye fashions her in such a way that she feels like an individual rather than a cliche. It's a breezy read despite the dark subject matter, and the reader quickly gets swept up in Erin's redemptive saga.
A raw, emotional novel of recovery and familial reckoning.
