Description: Recently widowed clockmaker Wayland Jackson, with his daughter Paula, is on his way to Tennessee when their car breaks down in Western North Carolina mountains. They walk, looking for help, when they find Collie Wright, living alone in a cabin with her infant son. What they also find is a new life, but nothing comes without a price.
Review Quotes:
"A lovely novel . . . about families, about the fragile yet durable ties that we establish among ourselves . . . Ehle's people, all of them, are splendid. Collie, her emotions seesawing as she tries with mounting frustration to keep her life on an even keel, is a person of striking good humor and endearing independence of mind. Wayland, gentle and decent and wry, has a strength that is as quiet as the novel's. Each of Collie's three brothers emerges, quickly yet subtly, as a clearly definable individual and, at the same time, a member of a family that is itself a clearly definable entity . . . his descriptive prose is quite marvelous . . . a very substantial piece of work, thoroughly satisfying in every important respect." --Washington Post
"A spare, funny, harrowing, moving novel drawn with sure, swift strokes." --Newsweek
"A fine book, rich and haunting and a source of great, deep pleasure." --Kirkus Reviews