End of August, a tenderly drawn family saga by first-time author Paige Dinneny, is rooted in the lives of three generations of strong, independent women.
Set in Indiana in the summer of 1979, the novel is narrated by deeply sensitive, 15-year-old Aurora Taylor. She and her restless, 31-year-old mother, Laine, have lived in 18 towns. Their roaming existence stems from Laine's tendency to fall in love easily and then cut-and-run for various reasons--"dead-end" jobs and a "revolving door of men." Aurora was a "mistake," birthed when Laine "was still a kid" herself. When the two learn that Aurora's grandmother has lost her husband--Laine's stepfather--Laine decides to attend the funeral and check on her mother, Katherine, a recovering alcoholic.
But what is intended as a short layover becomes a longer stay as Laine casts her wiles on a local, married mailman. She takes a job at a downtown diner, and the three women soon settle under the same roof in Monroe, a "blink-and-you-might-miss-it" small Midwestern town. Although Aurora's gran and her mom are "oil and water," that doesn't keep Aurora and Katherine from forging a deep bond, with the older woman discovering what a well-adjusted teenager Aurora has become despite her vagabond life.
Gran, her house, and the small town become a refuge for Aurora. She makes friends, gets a job at a bowling alley, and even falls for responsible, caring pastor's son named Harry, who comes from a solid family and works as a lifeguard at the local pool. As Aurora and Harry grow closer, Laine and her married lover become the talk of the town. Aurora fears that if her mother repeats history, they will become social outcasts and be forced to uproot again. Aurora rebels: all she wants is to be a "normal" teenager, get a driver's license, and start school in a place that feels like the only stable home she's ever known.
Dinneny's emotionally evocative, multigenerational coming-of-age story shows how providence can pave a way through familial abandonment and addiction issues to build pathways to redemption. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines
Shelf Talker: A tenderly drawn, redemptive family saga centered on what divides and unites three generations of strong, independent Midwestern women.