Letters in the mail from his long-dead brother send Leo Nolan on a time-bending journey in this “deceptive novel . . . filled with extraordinary events” (The New York Times).
Things have to be settled, or they never go away.
Only weeks before she dies in March, 1984, Leo Nolan’s mother shows her son a rose she says was just given to her by her brother, Jack, who disappeared 50 years earlier. After her death, letters from Jack begin to arrive at the family home. They are postmarked 1934. The final one is from Ashland, Kentucky.
Leo heads to Ashland, to track down the source of the letters…. And to find out why they are arriving now, after 50 years.
Time shifts. Time runs underground, then surfaces. It is 1934, and Leo experiences the Great Depression and the ghosts of the past as no one has in 50 years, in Ashland, where dreams die and are born again.
“A love story, time travel epic, ghost story, labor history, road novel and a bank heist, all with the added touch of Steinbeckian metaphysics. For me it was the surprise of the year, a rich evocation of 1934 small-town Kentucky that winds up completely unpredictable.” –The Edmonton Journal, “Top Fiction Pick of the Year”
“Green has devised a truly mysterious mystery, he writes with a real and rare sympathy for his characters.” –The Atlanta Constitution
“A jewel of a novel” –Booklist
WORLD FANTASY AWARD FINALIST
