First published 1998
Kate Vaiden stands at her kitchen window in middle age, staring at a life shaped by one terrible decision. At seventeen, she gave birth to a son and walked away, leaving him behind in the red clay country of small-town America. Now, decades later, the weight of that choice presses against her chest like a stone. She wants to find him, to see the man her baby became, but fear holds her back. What if he refuses to see her? What if he cannot forgive what she did? Kate begins to tell her story, tracing the path from the girl who fled her own child to the woman who finally understands what she lost. Her journey takes her through the landscape of ordinary American life, where tragedy and joy sit side by side, where comic moments break through sorrow, and where one woman's extraordinary circumstances reveal the universal struggle between running away and coming home.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, second-chance
Setting: America, Red Clay Country
Period: Middle Age
306 pages · Paperback · Scribner