Dianne (gardngal) reviewed on 3/25/2014 + 274 more book reviews

This story is fiction, but is based on a real town in northern Missouri by the name of Pawnee, which no longer exists due to a fire sometime during the Depression. Noah Bly heard the story of Pawnee from his grandmother, and created the characters to reenact what his grandmother described to him. He has a great way with words and phrases. I really loved the way his descriptive phrases unleashed the imagery, like when he wrote "they were meant to be together like butter and cornbread" and "when she got going full force it was enough to make a stone gargoyle loose control of its bowels". The story begins quietly enough, but the action starts early and never lets up. A middle aged woman escapes from a mental hospital in Maine and picks up two companions as she travels back to her hometown. The three accumulate accidents and trouble all along the way, and are on the run from the law. Thanks to Bly's smooth prose, it is easy to read and the plot flows rapidly from one scene to the next, making it almost impossible to put down. This was a wonderful story of friendship found through the tragic events over a two day period. Bly describes it in one sentence as "Enormous love, and an equally powerful grief." It is a very powerful book, and has plenty of humorous moments as well. I particularly liked the way the author covered every important scene from the individual perspective of each of the participants. In the end, even the minor characters who appeared in the story were given their own due wrap-up, so the reader is never left wondering what happened to them. This is an unusual technique and one I really appreciated. Highly recommend this book - I loved it! Five stars + !

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