Missouri native Allen Eskens' "stunning small-town mystery" (New York
Times Book Review) is a necessary exploration of family, loyalty, and
racial tension in America and "a coming-of-age book to rival some of the
best, such as Ordinary Grace" (Library Journal, starred review).
In a small Southern town where loyalty to family and to "your people"
carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be
a deadly proposition. After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark
hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is
beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes,
driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new
kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is
being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a
child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him,
suffocating him.
Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady's life begins to
twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins -- a black family settling
into a community where notions of "us" and "them" carry the weight of
history -- forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he's
taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the
mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who
carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet
boss who is fighting his own hidden battle.
But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the
African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics
factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred
thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the
missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into
the deepest fabric of his world.
As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark
lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town -- and
he will be forced to choose sides.
Best Book of the Year: Florida Sun-Sentinel and Library
Journal
Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award
