Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends a tale of family dynamics, a closer look at Western history and a book that’s strictly for the birds.
From the publisher: It’s the night before a much-needed vacation, and Jack — a former playwright mourning his failed career — catches his husband, Randy, packing his mother’s urn. They had agreed: no mother on this trip. Parents, living or otherwise, aren’t the ideal guests for romantic getaways. But Randy has been carrying his mother’s remains everywhere since her death, and he isn’t ready to let go now.
Despite its natural beauty and kitschy charm, the Oregon coast does not provide the respite the couple seeks. Instead, their surroundings and encounters with locals grow increasingly surreal as the days pass. An overly dedicated Method actor, tantra-obsessed neighbors, and a child environmentalist who may be able to communicate with the dead are but a few of the characters whose presence exposes long-simmering tensions that threaten to undo Jack and Randy’s marriage — to say nothing of their hold on reality…