The Solace of Leaving Early

This book, by Haven Kimmel, had been stacked on top of my chest of drawers for some time before I promoted it to the stack on my bedside table.  Where, in turn, it sat for a while longer.

Then I picked it up.  And blew through it in a week.  A lovely book, really compelling, about a geeky girl who walks out of a PhD program in lit to return to a very small town in a pretty eccentric family with lots of repressed shit of its own.  And a couple of small girls orphaned when their parents killed each other with their respective handguns. And a quirky preacher who is equally well-suited to this three cow town. I think most readers can do the math and see where this story must go, but when it gets there, it's really quite moving.

Oh hell, I can't even begin to do it justice -- I had all sorts of fine thoughts about it the day before yesterday but now my brain is encumbered by a belly full or treats from a function this evening -- but I really had a hard time putting it down, I promise.

It even featured a quote from the same John Donne poem we had read at our wedding.