First published 2020
Ellie and Brick are teenagers in love in 1950s Ohio. Brick plays basketball and dreams of college, a chance to escape his abusive father and become the first in his blue-collar family to get a degree. Ellie plans to attend nursing school. Then Ellie discovers she's pregnant. They marry quickly. Ellie abandons her nursing dreams. Brick trades his college hopes for a union card and steady work. The novel follows their marriage and their daughter Samantha as she grows up. Three generations navigate the pressures of working-class life while harboring desires they cannot speak aloud. Secrets simmer beneath the surface of their daily routines. The family members know more about each other than they admit, and the truths they avoid eventually threaten to destroy what they've built together.
Genres: american-fiction, abuse, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, secrets
Setting: Ohio
Period: 1950s
461 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: abuse, domestic-violence