The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics
delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted novel of unplanned isolation and
newly forged community.
Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the
immutable facts of your life--the mundane, the trivial, the
take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every
day--suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected
circumstances?
I went home, of course.
MURBRIDGE COMMUNITY MESSAGE BOARD
FREE: 500 cans of corn. Accidentally ordered them online. I really hate
corn. Happy to help load.
REMINDER: use your own goddamn garbage can for your own goddamn pet
waste. I'm looking at you Peter Luflin.
REMINDER: monthly Select Board meeting this Friday. Agenda items: 1)
sludge removal; 2) upkeep of chime tower; 3) ice rink monitor thank you
gift. Questions? Contact Hildegard Hyman, HHMurbridge@gmail.com
Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to
Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn.
Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe
space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real
and imagined.
But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and
immutable, has changed. And while Darcy's first instinct might be to
hole herself up in her childhood bedroom, subsisting on Chef Boy-R-Dee
and canned chickpeas, it is human nature to do two things: seek out
meaningful human connection and respond to anonymous internet postings.
As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in
person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions:
What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?
