Publisher's Weekly Review
Carter (We Were Strangers Once) crafts an endearing, sweeping saga of strangers brought together. In three parts, spanning from 1929 to the early 1980s, Carter weaves the tangled web of her characters in fine, poetic detail. She begins in New Rochelle, N.Y., in 1929, with vain Geraldine Wingo, her dependable husband Earle, and their newborn girl, Emilia Mae. Geraldine never overcomes her fatigue from her colicky baby, whom she calls the devil child, and when Emilia turns 15, Geraldine sends her away to live and work as a charwoman at the nearby Neptune Inn. In the same year the Wingos had their baby girl, another couple in a remote Catskills lake town have a baby boy out of wedlock. Named Dillard Fox and raised by the father, Dillard matures into a good-looking, charming young man with musical talent who travels from job to job and town to town. In 1961, he meets the stoic Emilia Mae, now a single mother, and her bubbly nine-year-old daughter. Here, Carter connects the dots, unveiling a picture of an unconventional family made up of three generations of Wingos, their close friends, and Dillard, and the story comes alive through the honesty and raw emotion injected into the characters. Her unflinching look at the characters' imperfections and boundless exploration into their minds makes for an exceptional tale. (Aug.)
Kirkus Review
A sweeping intergenerational story of the intertwined lives of two people who find themselves staying briefly at the Neptune Inn in New Rochelle, New York. Dillard Fox is a child, a young man, a middle-aged stepfather, and an aging man in this book. He is also a musician, a teaching assistant, a receptionist, a construction laborer, and a bakery assistant. Emilia Mae Wingo is a baby, a teen, a single mother, a middle-aged woman, and an aging grandmother. Apart from a stint as a hotel cleaner and helper in her teens--resulting in an unplanned pregnancy--she spends her life working in her parents' bakery. Dillard is gay; Emilia Mae is not. The two marry one another because of their deep yearning for love and comfort and home and family. In the mid-20th century, these options are not available for Dillard with a man--though by the time he meets Emilia Mae and her daughter, Alice, his heart has already been broken by a secret relationship with Nick that ended abruptly and unexpectedly, leaving him unmoored. Emilia Mae, once a colicky baby, has grown up with the knowledge that her mother believes she was born with the devil inside her. It is Alice who binds Dillard and Emilia Mae together. In this sweeping tale that extends through much of the 20th century before ending in 1980s New York City, the reader meets Dillard's and Emilia Mae's parents, friends, and lovers and is given a deep, layered look at what events, people, choices, and secrets shape Dillard, Emilia Mae, and Alice into the complicated individuals they ultimately become. A bittersweet tale that follows the twists and turns of love and loss and the painfulness and joy of life. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
