Susannah's Garden
book
At 50, Seattleite Susannah Nelson is unsatisfied with her American dream: she's got a devoted husband, two teenage children and a rewarding career teaching fifth grade. She's also got a recently deceased father, a mother increasingly unable to care for herself,and recurring dreams about her high school sweetheart, Jake Presley, who disappeared around the time of the death of her brother, Doug, 30 years ago. Returning to her hometown of Colville, Wash., over the summer to look after her mother, Susannah has an ulterior motive: to find Jake. As she orchestrates her mother's rocky move to a nursing home and tries to keep track of her household (particularly her petulant daughter, recently taken with shiftless townie Troy Nance), Susannah picks up Jake's trail with the help of a private investigator and a childhood friend. As tension mounts between Susannah and her family, she uncovers the shocking details of Jake's disappearance--and of Doug's death--and ultimately faces her long-buried resentment toward her father.