First published 2015
Donal Cameron lives with his grandmother at the Double W ranch in Montana's Two Medicine Country, where the Rocky Mountain landscape feeds his eleven-year-old imagination. When Gram needs surgery for female trouble in the summer of 1951, she sends Donal to stay with her sister Kate in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Kate proves to be bossy, argumentative, and tyrannical, constantly berating her gentle husband Herman the German while making Donal's life miserable. After one fight too many, Kate ships Donal back to Montana authorities on a Greyhound bus. But Herman surprises everyone by abandoning his domineering wife to join the boy on his journey home. The unlikely pair travels together across America, encountering colorful characters and comic adventures. This final novel captures the spirit of lighting out for the territory, combining humor and heart in a story about finding family in unexpected places.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, adventure, coming-of-age, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: America, Montana, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Period: 1951
453 pages · Hardcover · Riverhead Books