This must be the place, by Kate Racculia

Who is the fascinating and enigmatic Amy? She makes monsters (movie monsters) for a living, and what are we to make of the fact that she abandons all who love her? Is she the monster? The final abandonment, her unexpected death in her early thirties, propels her stricken husband, Arthur Rook, to flee their Los Angeles home and seek out the meaning of a 16 year-old unsent postcard addressed to a friend of her youth, Desdemona Jones. At the Mona’s boardinghouse, where she lives with her daughter Oneida and a small cast of quirky residents, Arthur finds more than he expected. Mona struggles with the reappearance of Amy in her life, her memories of the time they ran away to Ocean City together at fifteen, and Amy’s lasting influence on the choices she has made. Oneida, now fifteen herself, moves from her childish acceptance of her happy life to questioning almost everything about it as she enters the maelstrom of teenage angst. Questions abound. Was Oneida really named after a spoon? How do any of us ever survive high school? Great characters, and an impressive debut novel. 350 pp.