Rachel, a self-described "middle-aged childless recently orphaned menopausal workaholic journalist," returns to Portland, Maine, after her mother's death, where she faces guilt, her sister Celeste's resentment, and complex feelings for a long-time lover. In Welcome Home, Stranger, Kate Christensen's eighth novel (The Last Cruise; How to Cook a Moose; Blue Plate Special), Rachel is a likable protagonist who inspires sympathy for her lonely and dreaded return to her past.
The sisters concede that it's too late to mourn their mother, whose lifetime of narcissism and competition with them, "pretending to be motherly with cloyingly caustic swipes," included angrily dismissing Rachel just a decade earlier. Celeste--settled in town with her husband, heir to Maine old money--unreasonably resents her sister for not being there at the end and for inheriting their mother's town house. This "unasked-for burden of a gift" demands Rachel's attention, a distraction from personal upheaval back in D.C., which includes a career impasse as a dedicated environmental journalist, and grief over the physical decline of her former husband, with whom she amicably shares a home. Rachel, tempted by the now-married love of her life, juggles this onslaught of emotional challenges with wit and a generosity of spirit.
With effort, the sisters defuse the rivalry their mother fostered, reaching a fragile détente. Although Rachel had dismissed Maine to "a dark northern blot on the map," it's a perilous episode in the northern woods that clarifies her future in this sophisticated, witty novel of midlife reflection and acceptance. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.