First published 2009
Vaughn Williams spends his days channel surfing and Googling everything while teaching occasional classes at the local junior college. The mostly retired architect lives on Mississippi's Gulf Coast in the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina. He worries too much about his dead father and struggles with the ordinary troubles of getting older. When his ex-wife Gail gets attacked by her violent boyfriend, she asks Vaughn and his girlfriend Greta to move in with her. They say yes without thinking it through. What follows includes confrontations with Gail's abusive ex, moonlit car rides, gambling sessions, and grown men playing with model trains. Vaughn's successful younger brother shows up at the worst possible moment. Then Gail asks Vaughn to marry her again. The broken landscape around them mirrors their own damaged lives as they try to sort through love, mortality, and second chances.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Gulf Coast, Mississippi
Period: 21st-century
229 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: domestic-violence