FAMILY TIES FAMILY LIES

A woman caring for her dying mother probes her dead father’s infidelity and a string of bicycle thefts in Boulden’s luminous novel.

Rose Webster, a Philadelphia photojournalist, returns to her girlhood home of Lake Amelia, New York, when her mother Carly takes a bad fall after fainting. When Carly is diagnosed with stage three lung cancer, she opts to forgo treatment in favor of in-home hospice care. Much of the book fleshes out well-observed caregiving procedures as Rose (herself nursing a broken arm suffered when she was covering a strike) devotedly tends to sleeping arrangements, meds, and meals for the fading Carly. The compulsively curious Rose also makes time to delve into a rash of stolen bicycle reports that are being investigated by Maxi Stover, a by-the-book deputy sheriff whom Rose befriends and pumps for information about the thefts. At the same time, Rose explores a more intimate mystery when she unearths evidence of her deceased father Randall’s adulterous relationship with a woman with the initials KNT; when she asks Carly and her Aunt Tess about the affair, they angrily shut down her questions. Rose continues her own sleuthing and discovers answers that upend her understanding of her family’s history. Boulden’s story presents small-scale but beguiling mysteries backgrounded by a vibrant portrait of a small town that’s both warmly close-knit and slightly claustrophobic. It’s also a meditation on family love, loss, and remembrance, conveyed in plangent prose grounded in rich, concrete detail: “Her mom’s chin rested on her chest, lulled to sleep by the gentle motion of the car, the passing view out the window of summer-green trees and open fields, and perhaps the acceptance of what lay ahead.” Readers will root for Rose as she seeks out truths that are as likely to wound as to heal.

A captivating saga that finds deep emotional resonances in quiet scenes of family life.