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Summary
Summary
When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondacks town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a loving but fiercely independent woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, and so Clara built a new life for herself, far from her roots and the world she had always known.
Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home. Tamar has become increasingly forgetful, and can no longer live on her own. But just as her mother's memory is declining, Clara's questions are building. Why was Tamar so insistent that Clara leave, all those years ago? Just what secrets was she hiding?
The surprising answers Clara uncovers are rooted in her mother's love for her, and the sacrifices Tamar made to protect her. And in being released from her past--though now surrounded by friends from it--Clara can finally look forward to the future. Never Coming Back is a brilliant and piercing story of a young woman finding her way in life, determined to know her mother--and by extension herself--before it's too late.
Author Notes
Alison McGhee lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
She is the recipient of a Loft-McKnight Fellowship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a 1995 Editor's Fiction Prize from Snake nation, and a Pushcart Prize honorable mention. Her title Bink and Gollie, Two for One with Kate DiCamillo made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
(Publisher Provided)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this poignant meditiation on the relationship between a mother and daughter from McGhee (Shadow Baby), Clara Winter is 31 when she first notices that her almost-50-year-old mother, Tamar, seems to be more forgetful than usual. After learning that her mother has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, Clara moves from her home in Florida back to the Adirondacks where she grew up. Clara's fear of facing her mother's deteriorating health is coupled with her own concern that there is a 50-50 chance she has inherited the gene that causes early-onset Alzheimer's. She also wants to find out why her mother so adamantly pushed her to attend college far away but fears that, due to her mother's condition, she may never find out. Though this well-written story will appeal to a broad range of readers for its rich characterization, mothers and daughters will especially find Clara's and Tamar's story moving and memorable. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A luminous novel about a daughter who attempts to make peace with her mother, who's been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease; McGhee revisits characters from Shadow Baby (2000).Clara Winter, a preteen in the earlier book, is now in her early 30s, making a meager living writing eulogies or wedding tributes for $100 a pop. When she learns that her mother has been diagnosed with dementia, she moves from Florida back to the Adirondacks, where she grew up. Her mother, meanwhile, has sold her house and all its possessionswith the exception of Clara's childhood booksand moved into a nursing home. Clara wants to say goodbye to her mom, the "fearsome" Tamar, but she is also desperate to solve a mystery from her youth: why did her high school boyfriend break up with her after a conversation with her mother? Despite Clara's age, the book sometimes has the ring of a young-adult novel: Clara's budding romance with a sweet, hunky bartender seems uncomplicated by whatever life she has been living for the past decade, her only friendships are with college friends, and her obsession with high school secrets would make more sense for a younger character. McGhee nimbly structures the novel as a version of Tamar's favorite television show, Jeopardy, and if the answers to Clara's questions aren't as compelling as the hunt to find them, the author's gift for subtly poetic language and her believable dialogue make Clara's journey worth following. McGhee has an almost musical ability to repeat the themes of her novel with enough variation to keep them fresh. Fierce, complicated characters appear to grow out of the severe Adirondack landscape, and McGhee swerves away from sentimentality in addressing the relentlessly changing relationship at the novel's core. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Clara Winter didn't think she'd ever return to the Adirondacks. Now in her early thirties, Clara moves homeish, squeezing the bare essentials and her beloved book collection into a 250-square-foot cabin in Old Forge. Clara's mother, a ruggedly independent woman named Tamar, has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, and Clara knows this is her last chance to gain any insight into her mother's mysterious past. Clara and Tamar's relationship has always been fraught, so both parties are skeptical about any true reconciliation. Even so, Clara and Tamar reach a new level of understanding about themselves, each other, and the meaning of family in McGhee's quietly powerful novel. Clara's emotional journey is buoyed by her close friends and a potential romantic interest, injecting some levity into the cathartic story. Fans of Sara Baume, Holly Chamberlin, and Francesca Segal will appreciate McGhee's magnetic prose and her ability to pack a richly detailed story into a slim novel. Atmospheric and introspective, Never Coming Back will resonate with those who have lost a parent to illness or estrangement but still have questions they'd like to be answered.--Turza, Stephanie Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
When 31-year-old writer Clara returns home to help care for her single mother, Tamar, who was recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, she's desperate to learn the answers to two long-troubling questions: What did Tamar say to Clara's now-deceased ex-boyfriend that made him break up with her all those years ago, and why did Tamar secretly arrange for her to leave home to attend college? While racing against time and disease to find the answers, Clara leans on college friends and an attractive local bartender for support and learns more about her mother and herself. McGhee's latest novel (Shadow Baby; Someday) not only tackles the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship and the unresolved conflicts that can have lasting effects on both women, it also informs readers about how Alzheimer's can quickly and cruelly ravage a person. The author's many references to an enduring TV game show and its famous host help lighten the mood while cleverly adding to the novel's realism. Verdict Although Tamar and Clara are stubborn and not always likable, readers will root for them to gain closure and find peace. For fans of realistic fiction about difficult family relationships.-Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
It was not possible. That was my first thought. Because had she ever been on a date? Had she ever kissed anyone? Had she ever asked someone to a Sadie Hawkins dance, or been to a prom? Had she ever gone to a bar with someone and put quarters in a jukebox and played pool and ordered a second cocktail because she was having fun? Had she ever sat across from a man who had put on a clean shirt for the occasion, at a small table with a tablecloth and a candle and not one but two menus, one for wine and one for food? Questions shoved up against each other in my head. No and no and no and no and no. The interviewer, her legs crossed, her fingers hovering over her keyboard -- "Miss Winter, to your knowledge, did your mother, Tamar Winter, ever go on a date?" -- No, before the quotation mark was fully slotted next to the question mark. "Did your mother, Tamar Winter, ever go on a date No ." A broken sentence. Part question but mostly No . Why so quick with the No, though, Miss Winter? Wouldn't you want her to have gone on a date? Wouldn't you want your mother to have had some happiness in her life that way, a few hours where she was not just your mother, but a young woman out with a young man who thought she was lovely? Lovely? Lovely? Stop it. It was not possible to think of her as anyone other than exactly who she was, who she had been: a woman of the north woods, a lumber-woman in a lumber jacket, a splitter of wood, a remover of decals, a non-Sunday singer in a choir, a manless woman, a boyfriendless woman, a husbandless woman, a dateless woman, who was, who had been, my mother. The word lovely did not apply, but for the fact that it did. After I waved goodbye from the porch, I went straight to the shelf in the kitchen. My mother's faded face smiled up from her perch next to Jack. My heart skipped a beat and then began rocketing around its prison of sinew and bone, looking for a way out. Et tu, heart? Heart, quiet thyself. But the wayward heart did not listen, and down I lay on the floor, photo flat against my shaking chest, the diminished stacks of books-as-coffee-table rising around me. New images of my mother scrolled by, leaping and dancing across the spines of the remaining books of my childhood. Tamar with her hair French-braided, wearing that pretty white shirt, standing on the porch and smiling as a car drove into our driveway just beyond the frame of the picture. Tamar at the Boonville County Fair holding the hand of a faceless, bodiless, voiceless man just beyond the frame of the picture. Tamar at Hemstrought's Bakery in Utica, pointing at a half-moon cookie and smiling at a man just beyond the frame of the picture. Just beyond the frame of the picture. He, whoever he was, was there. Had he been there all along? "You are way overreacting here, Clara," I said out loud as the photo and I lay on the floor by the books. "Calm the hell down. It's a photo." But there are times when you know a thing, immediately and of a piece, and you can't un-know it. You can't convince yourself that you are overreacting. I held the photo above my head and looked at it this way and that way, sideways and upside down. Nothing made the look in my mother's eyes go away. Nothing from here on out would make the softness, that softness I had never seen, go away. Who? When? How? Where? Out the door and into the Subaru the minute my heart reverted to a normal rhythm. Down the half hour to Sterns, then onto Fox Road. When Annabelle opened the door I held the photo up in front of her, pincered between my thumb and forefinger. She leaned back instead of forward -- middle-aged eyes, reversing course -- and squinted. When she didn't say anything, I waved it back and forth, dancing it through the air between us. I didn't trust the steps I was standing on. They were made of plastic and flimsy metals. They could give way at any time. I waited for her to say something. "Nice to see you too, Clara," was what she said, after a minute or so. She stood aside so that I could come in, but I didn't move. From what I could see and smell there was nothing baking in her kitchen, nothing bubbling on the stove under a pot lid. "How can I help you?" I said nothing. I stood there and kept holding the photo. If my instinct was right, then Annabelle would crumple before my silence and tell me what she knew about this unfamiliar Tamar Winter dancing in the air before her. She would tell me about the look on my mother's face. She would tell me who had taken the photo. I stood silently, and so did Annabelle. She tilted her head as if she were trying to figure out why I was holding the photo before her like a piece of evidence. She frowned. She looked at me, except not really, because her eyes didn't meet mine. And when someone's eyes won't meet yours, even though you can tell they're trying to make their eyes meet yours, when their face turns even a fraction of an inch away from yours, when you can feel the unease flowing through their body even though they are forcing themselves to stand elaborately, casually still, that's your answer. Cultivate silence. Silence, and patience, and determination. Now that I had my answer -- she knew who had taken that photo -- I stepped inside. The trailer felt warm. Not thermostat warm, not oil or gas or baseboard or electric-space-heater warm but warm by nature, as if Annabelle herself, the great furnace of her body and her heart, were all that was necessary. I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. Annabelle stood across the table from me. She was trying to intimidate me by not sitting down, not joining me, as if that would make me stop whatever it was I was doing. Too late, Annabelle. You've already given yourself away and there's no going back. I laid the photo in the precise middle of the table. "Who took this?" "No clue." She was trying not to look at the photo but her eyes kept dragging back to it, as though there were something fascinating about it. "Where was it taken?" "No idea." "When was it taken?" "You got me." The kitchen was the detaining room and Annabelle was the suspect, trying her best not to cave until the public defender arrived. "Annabelle, tell me what you know." She shrugged. "It's a nice photo of your mother. Something else to add to the pile." "The pile? The pile of what?" "Things you have of her. Memorabilia." "She's still around, Annabelle. She's not dead." "You know what I mean." The sentences sounded like Annabelle sentences but the Annabelle-ness of her voice was gone. She sounded quiet. She sounded tired. The photo lay on the table between us, a jigsaw piece missing its puzzle. She pressed down on one slightly ripped corner with the tip of her finger, as if she were trying to make it whole again. "You know more than you're telling me," I said. "Please, Annabelle. I'm trying to figure out my mother." I meant to sound like a detective, insistent on the piece of evidence on the table between us, but I didn't. I sounded like myself. "Did she . . . have a boyfriend?" It didn't come out right when I said it. There was a squeak at the end of boy , and friend trailed off. I tried again. "Or, like, a girlfriend?" That didn't sound right either. She shook her head. Immediate and clear. No. Not a girlfriend. "Some guy? After I went away?" Shake. No one in my mother's life after I went away. But she kept shaking her head, too long to make a point, and suddenly another possibility came to me. "Are you saying there was a man in my mother's life when I was around? Before I went to college?" She kept shaking her head, or trying to, but her eyes slid away. The giveaway. "Before I went away?" I said. Repeating myself, as if there were a chance she didn't understand. "While I still was here? I mean here as in Sterns, living with her in our house? Back then?" She wouldn't look at me. "Who?" I said. Silence. " WHO ." Silence. "I will find out, Annabelle." My voice was on the edge of breaking. My most-hated voice, the tremble. "If not from you, then from someone." Excerpted from Never Coming Back by Alison Mcghee All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.