Every Last Cuckoo

At age seventy-five, Sarah thought that her life was settled and assured: she and Charles would live out their days in the quiet comfort of their rural Vermont home. But now, with Charles gone, Sarah is unable to find peace. That is, until her home unforeseeably becomes an unruly refuge for wayward souls. First comes her teenage granddaughter Lottie, who can't abide living with her mother. She's soon joined by two similarly displaced young friends; an Israeli soldier who needs a retreat; a young mother and son who've lost their home to a fire; and a woman and her infant fleeing a violent partner.

In the tradition of Jane Smiley and Sue Miller, author Kate Maloy has crafted a wise and gratifying novel about a woman who finds the most rewarding role of her life just when she thought the best years were over.

Publishers Weekly

Maloy explored northern landscapes and Quaker faith in her memoir A Stone Bridge North; she returns to both in her moving debut novel. When 75-year-old Sarah Lucas's husband, Charles, succumbs to an injury at the peak of a particularly brutal Vermont winter, her worst later-life fears of physical mishap are realized. In grief, Sarah's memories take her back to the Great Depression, when her parents generously opened their home to countless friends and relatives, and to her own regretted missteps as a parent. The chance to recreate the one experience and rectify the other arrives uninvited when a variety of lost souls-Sarah's own teenage granddaughter; an Israeli pacifist; a devastated young mother and child-seek shelter and solace in Sarah's too-empty home. The motley assortment of characters, many of whom have been touched by violence, deliver passionate apostrophes on peace and justice, and together Sarah and her boarders discover unseen beauty in the landscape, uncover hidden talents and develop a nurturing, healing community. Maloy's wordplay and startling nature imagery enchant, but readers will have to decide if the spectacular climax, an expression of its characters' principles in action, is out of place with the novel's quiet thoughtfulness. (Jan.)