Returns and Exchanges
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 19, 2026
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping novel of one Kentucky family’s rise and fall throughout the 1980s—a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the perils of mixing family with business, from the acclaimed author of The Animators
“This is the novel I’ve been missing: a sprawling, emotional, and true family saga. I fell completely in love with the characters, the story, the setting. All of it. It’s damn near perfect.”—Ayelet Waldman, author of Love & Treasure
It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store, while last-minute shoppers in the toy aisle are fighting over the lone remaining Atari. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches.
With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream—rags to riches—with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.
Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes he will go to in order to fit in with the slicked-back high society crowd of Lexington, Kentucky, are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Josiah, the oldest son, wants nothing to do with the family business; Sam is seeing things that might not really be there; and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers had. Meanwhile, Fran, her family’s stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker-Taylor’s, risking everything along the way. While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran learn that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone—no returns, no exchanges.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This gimlet-eyed saga from Whitaker (The Animators) traces the rise of a family-owned chain of discount stores in Kentucky. Fran and Fred Taylor grew up in a rural part of the state in "standard issue deprivation." By 1979, they're in their early 40s and are raising four kids in Lexington while running Baker-Taylor's, a discount department store that's positioned to expand. Though they're viewed as gauche by their old-money neighbors, they're proud of their "do-it-on-my-own money." As their stylish cousin Jack once said, "What Fred lacked in worldview, he made up for with hunger." But as the family settles into upper-middle-class life, Fred and Fran's bond begins to fray. To Fran's surprise, she can't stop daydreaming about Wendy, one of the store's new general managers. Fred, plagued by anxiety about how others view him, achieves his dream of being invited to join an exclusive fraternal organization but hides it from Fran. Their four children, ranging from middle school– to college-age, become increasingly disillusioned by their family's growing fortune. Whitaker expertly juggles the expansive cast of characters and elicits sympathy for all of them even when they exhibit the worst parts of themselves. It's an openhearted epic of the American dream and the bargains struck to achieve it.
