Keepsake

Kristina Riggle. Morrow, $14.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-200307-2

In Riggle’s touching and timely latest (after Things We Didn’t Say), Trish is a divorced mother struggling to raise two sons, the elder of whom, teenager Drew, flees his mother’s house because of her obsessive hoarding. When younger son Jack is injured in the cluttered home, a concerned social worker gives Trish a wakeup call and chilling ultimatum: clean up or lose your son. This spurs Drew to reach out to Mary, Trish’s estranged sister, for help. Mary and Trish’s mother had a hoarding problem as well, and Mary reacted by obsessing over the cleanliness of her house. Mary reluctantly goes to Trish’s aid, but she quickly realizes that the job is more than she can handle, so Mary enlists college friend (and psychologist) Seth to help. As the trio move through the strata of Trish’s material life and fraught emotional past, the women struggle to come to terms with their mother’s behavior and the stark differences in their responses, and try to remember that they are cleaning house for the sake of the next generation. Agent: Kristin Nelson. (June)

Reviewed on: 04/23/2012

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Ebook - 384 pages - 978-0-06-213631-2