Silver Alert
A Novel
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3.9 • 19 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Smith's latest is as delicious as a slice of key lime pie – and gone just as fast." ―People
"It's very different and it's very special and it's very good! I loved it." —Dolly Parton
A driving force in literature, Lee Smith returns with a road trip novel, a story full of hope and humor about not going away quietly—at any age.
Herb’s charmed life with his dear wife Susan in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan, in her 70s, now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. She sings to Susan during manicures, gets her to paint, and brings her a much-needed sense of contentment.
Then Herb and Susan’s adult children arrive to stage an intervention with their stubborn, independent father, and as a consequence, Renee’s gig with Susan—and her grand plans for her own life—start to unravel as well. Herb isn’t ready to let go of all that he has ever had, and it turns out that Renee is not the happy, uncomplicated girl she pretends to be. She is not even Renee; she is really Dee Dee, and she, too, has reasons of her own to hit the road. So Herb suggests one last joy ride in his Porsche with her riding shotgun; and they light out for parts north, setting off a Silver Alert.
As the unlikely friendship between Herb and Dee Dee deepens, we see how as one life is closing down, another opens up. This time that Dee Dee has spent with Susan, this time in Key West, and this time in the Porsche with the elderly Herb reveals to Dee Dee how much more truly lies ahead.
In this buoyant novel, the masterful Smith asks: What life do we deserve? And how do we make it our own? Sometimes, you just have to seize the wheel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smith (Blue Marlin) offers a nimble if slow-moving twist on the odd couple trope. Herbert "Herb" Atlas, 83, cares for his third wife, Susan, 70, who gave him a "whole new life" when they married 12 years earlier but is now stricken with dementia. Their children insist on round-the-clock care for Susan at their house in Key West, but Susan resists attention from anyone but her nail technician, Renee Martin. Soon, Renee is a fixture in the Atlas household, and it turns out her real name is Deidre "Dee Dee" June Mullins, and she's a North Carolina transplant who survived sex trafficking. When Herb receives a diagnosis of stage IV prostate cancer, Herb's kids stage an intervention, hoping to put Herb and Susan into a nursing home. Meanwhile, Dee Dee is unexpectedly pregnant from a man who has no plans to have a family, and with Herb determined not to be locked down, the two set off for an adventure in his yellow Porsche. Though the road trip comes a bit late, there's plenty of charm to the two main characters, one trying to outrun her past and the other trying to outrun his future. For patient readers, this is a treat.
