National Book Award finalist Patricia Henley captivates us with this engrossing novel of a woman whose long-held secret will transform her life and her marriage.
From all appearances, Ruth Anne Bond is enviably lucky. Her husband, Johnny, still treats her like a young lover. Her grown daughter is a staunch friend. Her steady work and devotion to the church have quietly made her a pillar of the community. Then one long Indiana summer brings some unexpected communiqués—including one she has both craved and feared for thirty years. As long-hidden truths threaten to emerge, for the first time in her marriage Ruth Anne is faced with memories she and Johnny never discuss: of a year spent in Saigon in 1968—and a past she has yet to acknowledge. Probing questions of family and faith, Patricia Henley offers us a tender, far-sighted novel about seeking answers and achieving grace.
“Emotionally rich. . . . Nuanced. . . . Voluptuous. . . . A true accomplishment in the craft of fiction.” —Chicago Tribune
“Absolutely superb. . . . With a poet’s eye for the essential and a novelists’s sweeping vision . . . Patricia Henley iluminates here the wounds and yearnings of us all.” —Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog
“Beautifully rendered. . . . An absorbing story.” —The Boston Globe
“Sure to please readers deeply. . . . Henley conjures the bygone Vietnam era with eerie and bittersweet poignancy.” —The Dallas Morning News
“An atmospheric and involving drama of family, belief and moral quandaries.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
