First published 2010
Carolyn Arundel grows up caught between her tuberculosis-stricken mother Hildemara and her strong-willed grandmother Marta. When the two women clash over household decisions, young Carolyn blames herself for the family tension. After Marta leaves and Hildie returns to work, Carolyn and her brother become latchkey children during the Cold War era. College gives Carolyn a taste of freedom, but a family crisis destroys her independence. She flees to San Francisco's counterculture movement, cutting all contact with home. Two years later, she surfaces with a daughter named May Flower Dawn and nowhere else to turn. Back home, history repeats itself as Dawn bonds more closely with grandmother Hildie than with Carolyn. The pattern of mother-daughter conflict threatens to continue across generations. Dawn recognizes the cycle and determines to break it, hoping to unite the women in her family rather than drive them further apart.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: cycle-of-abuse, found-family, generational-trauma
Setting: Cold War, San Francisco
Period: Cold War Era
580 pages · Hardcover · Tyndale House
Content warnings: abuse, domestic-violence, emotional-abuse