2001, Paperback, 256 pp., Picador USA
“This imaginative debut will delight with its remarkable grace, unforced humor, and elegantly descriptive prose.”
—Library Journal
When Tess Winterstone returns to her suburban childhood home after almost 30 years to attend a high school reunion, memories flood back, firmly shut doors open, and the betrayal by her father decades earlier comes to rest. Masterfully weaving the complexities of familial love and rosy 1950s suburban life with the dark underside of such a reality, Mary Morris movingly portrays a woman coming to terms with a warm and charming father’s duplicity.
Excerpt
My father used to say that sometimes you think you know a person, only to find out that you don’t. That life, when it comes to people, is full of surprises. I’ve found this to be true. You think you understand someone, only to realize that you didn’t. That you were wrong all along. Perhaps this is why I have chosen to live in such a remote place – a ramshackle house on a spit of land on the Pacific Coast.