First published 2013
An adolescent girl watches from her suburban New Jersey neighborhood as celebrated playwright Craig Towle arrives back home in the 1950s. He brings with him a much younger wife and a reputation that precedes him from New York City's theater world. The girl observes everything with sharp eyes but keeps her judgments to herself as the new couple stirs up gossip throughout their small town. Her own family becomes strangely obsessed with Towle, and their interest runs deeper than simple fascination with his fame. As the girl pieces together fragments of the past, she discovers that Towle may be connected to her family's history in ways that could shatter everything she thought she knew. The secrets buried in their shared past threaten to surface, and the potential revelations about Towle's role in her family's story promise to change everything. Through her innocent yet perceptive gaze, the complexities of adult relationships, small town dynamics, and family mysteries unfold in this portrait of 1950s suburban life.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: New Jersey, New York City
Period: 1950s
281 pages · Kindle Edition · Open Road Media