by Rilla Askew
First published 1992
The people of Cedar, Oklahoma live their lives in overlapping circles across a quarter century. Neighbors witness each other's births and funerals, marriages and divorces, small victories and quiet defeats. A young woman leaves for the city and returns changed. An old man tends his garden while watching the town transform around him. Children grow into adults who struggle with the same questions their parents faced. A shopkeeper serves customers who carry family grudges spanning generations. Each resident's story connects to another's, creating a web of relationships that binds this small community together. The town endures through economic hardship and personal loss, finding meaning in the simple act of continuing. These connected lives reveal how individual dreams and disappointments shape a place, and how a place shapes the people who call it home.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, slice-of-life
Setting: Cedar, Oklahoma
Period: Quarter Century
208 pages · Hardcover · Viking Adult