The Last Studebaker
A Novel
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
In this novel of a woman in search of the meaning of family, “Hemley draws a quirky, droll road map of the human heart, with all its foibles and dangers” (Publishers Weekly).
In 1963, when Lois Kulwicki’s father loses his job at Studebaker along with hundreds of other workers, he acts as if he has just been promoted. He buys a new car (the only non-Studebaker he’s ever purchased) and takes his family on vacation. On the way home, Mom dumps Dad at a Stuckey’s, and that’s the last they see of him.
Thirty years later, Lois has a family of her own, as fractured as her childhood family. Divorced but still living with her ex, she decides to move out with her two daughters and start over. But then a stranger named Henry enters their lives. As they create their own ersatz family, Lois tries to recover something of what she lost, beginning with a search for her abandoned father. The Last Studebaker is a heartfelt comic tale of lives changed forever, after the last Studebaker rolled off of the assembly line in South Bend, Indiana.
“[Hemley] has infused just the right amount of humor and pathos into his exploration of how people discover and maintain connections in these bewildering times.” —The New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This affecting, nostalgic drama of family dysfunction and reunion takes place in present-day South Bend, Ind., where the Studebaker plant, shut down in 1963, still casts its shadow over dented lives. Lois Kulwicki, divorced mother of two and devotee of garage sales, struggles to gain independence from her selfish, seemingly oh-so-reasonable ex-husband Willy, in whose house she still lives a year after their divorce. Gail, their teenage daughter, worried that she is pregnant, sees herself as the only sane person in a world of flaky adults. Finally thrown out by Willy, who's blithely remarrying, Lois and the girls rent a house and acquire an unwanted tenant: Henry Martin, a disoriented wreck ever since his girlfriend and her son were killed in a car accident. Lois is haunted by the memory of the father she hasn't seen in 25 years; her mother abandoned him after he lost his job at the Studebaker plant and went dotty. Is he still alive? The answer will involve a cross-country ride in a Studebaker, which serves as the unifying symbol of a bygone era when companies supposedly treated employees like family. Intimately familiar with America's Rust Belt, Hemley ( All You Can Eat ) draws a quirky, droll road map of the human heart, with all its foibles and dangers.
