by Graham Joyce
First published 2003
Frank Arthur Vine lives in a house full of women in Coventry, England. His mother Cassie fell for an American soldier during the war, but now she cannot care for her son. Frank's grandmother takes charge, and his six aunts each play a role in raising him. The aunts could not be more different from each other. Each has her own way of seeing the world and her own ideas about how Frank should grow up. Frank navigates their competing influences while trying to understand his place in this unusual family. His mother hovers at the edges of his life, present but unreliable. Frank must figure out who he is amid the chaos and love of his extended family. The women who raise him shape his understanding of loyalty, loss, and what it means to belong somewhere.
Genres: fiction, family, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Coventry, England
Period: World War II
304 pages · Hardcover · Atria Books