Brownell\u2019s book begins with Vee Haines waiting for her 9-year-old son, Ray, to come home. Their ramshackle homestead is in Starve-Out, New Mexico, a place so obscure that it\u2019s not on any map. Vee tells Ray bedtime stories about her own childhood as the oldest daughter of a well-to-do banker in Chicago. Privately, she remembers the series of misfortunes that led her from enjoying an affluent life to eking out a hardscrabble existence with Ray. Then a handsome stranger named Benton arrives, a man who\u2019s down-and-out, but also gentle, respectful, and kind. But after a brief interlude of happiness, things fall apart and Ray threatens to run away. The novel abruptly fast-forwards to Connecticut in 2012 and switches to the point of view of Vee\u2019s grandson, Davey Traska, an overweight college dropout who lacks a full-time job and lives in his mother\u2019s basement. Vee, 99, resides in a nursing home, and Davey worries that she\u2019s beginning to confuse past and present. She says \u201cI\u2019ll see you again yesterday\u201d when he visits, and he wonders if her stories of Starve-Out and Ray are remembered or imagined. At 27, Davey has a longstanding crush on Mia, a woman he\u2019s too scared to approach, and Vee encourages him to take a chance. Then Vee starts flirting with a nursing home resident, which upsets Davey. What happens next leads him to a reckoning and reconnection with his family\u2019s history and a newfound sense of purpose. The sudden shift in time and point of view is jarring at first, but the parallels and connections\u2014including hints of the supernatural\u2014between past and present become more meaningful as the present-day part of the story progresses. Brownell\u2019s writing is apt and evocative, whether describing a mesa\u2019s evening shadow spreading \u201cas though someone was pulling a soft, gray blanket across the desert landscape,\u201d or Davey\u2019s wardrobe of \u201csweat pants and sweatshirts probably made in sweatshops.\u201d Her characters are relatable and memorable. Vee transforms from a scared young girl into a tough, self-reliant woman, and Davey confronts his fears to change self-pity into hopeful action.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brownell\u2019s book begins with Vee Haines waiting for her 9-year-old son, Ray, to come home. Their ramshackle homestead is in Starve-Out, New Mexico, a place so obscure that it\u2019s not on any map. Vee tells Ray bedtime stories about her own childhood as the oldest daughter of a well-to-do banker in Chicago. Privately, she remembers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}