Washoe County Library System

"Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still...

A fierce debut novel about mothers and daughters, haves and have-nots, and the stark realities behind the American Dream. Told in biting parallel narratives, the stories of a Lithuanian immigrant waitress and her illegitimate daughter follow the former's struggles to secure a better life and the latter's determined efforts to connect with the father she never knew.