The Annie Year
A Novel
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award
Tall, trusted Tandy Caide, CPA, is a long-time patron of the arts in her town, which is why you will find her sitting in the front row of the high school’s annual musical production. This year is an Annie year—and it would be no different than other years were it not for the high school’s hiring of a new vocational agriculture (Vo-Ag) teacher. With his beguiling ponytail and decorative beaded belt, Kenny catches Tandy’s eye immediately. Ignoring the fact of her slovenly husband—who takes most of his meals in their hot tub—Tandy decides to entertain Kenny’s advances.
Trusted community pillar that she is, Tandy’s affair has instant repercussions. People are talking and her husband’s subsequent breakdown and check-in to a mental institution doesn’t help. At her regular meeting with the Order of the Pessimists—comprised of her deceased father’s disgruntled and drunken best friends—she is asked to step down as treasurer. Not only that, but her old lover is keeping a secret somehow connected to the Vo-Ag teacher. And meth labs—fueled by the abundance of fertilizer present in the region—keep blowing up. Somehow, it is all connected to Tandy’s ex-bestfriend’s daughter—the star of this year’s Annie. As Tandy pieces together the puzzle that has become her life, it becomes clear she must embark on a journey of self-discovery that might even include leaving town for good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A lonely accountant waffles between pessimism and hope in this quirky debut. Now in her early 40s, Tandy Caide has spent virtually her whole life in the same rural Iowa town, with the exception of a brief stint at college in comparatively cosmopolitan Dubuque. She is the town's only CPA, a responsibility she takes very seriously, and she seeks out sophistication where she can find it, by attending the high school's drama productions and enjoying a fine cup of coffee at the local diner. But when the exotic new vocational agriculture teacher expresses an interest in her, Tandy is sorely tempted to risk not only her loveless marriage but even her professional reputation for an opportunity to escape to a different life. Occasionally lapsing into a second-person narration, Tandy's voice is intriguingly and deceptively complex, leading readers to glimpse the longing beneath her professional veneer. Simultaneously a character study and an exploration about the personal costs of living in a dwindling farming town increasingly marred by meth abuse, Tandy's story finally offers bittersweet, hard-won hope.
