Since her dad left when she was 9, Mad has been working on their Tennessee farm with her mom, slowly building a following for their organic crops and free-range eggs. Then one Saturday a man rolls up in a PT Cruiser, claiming to be her half-brother, Rube. His dad left him when he was a kid, and as an adult, Rube hired a private investigator to see what became of his absent father. As it turns out, his father, insurance salesman and mystery author Charles Hill, moved to Tennessee to become an organic farmer, then reinvented himself in Oklahoma, Utah, and finally California, each time leaving a wife and child behind. Before she knows what's happening, Mad is on a cross-country road trip with Rube, following the trail of their father, meeting siblings, and preparing to face the man that left them all behind.
I loved Wilson's dysfunctional-family novel Nothing to See Here, and I had high hopes for this one too. It's not bad, and really focuses on the bonds of siblings, rather than a multigenerational family. It's not entirely believable, if only because I'd find it really hard to hop into a car with someone I just met, even if he is my half-brother, though the story is a fun one. Still, it doesn't hold a candle to the spontaneously combusting children of Nothing to See Here.
*This book will be published May 13, 2025.
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