“A GEM, POLISHED AND FACETED IN A WAY THAT PULLED ME INTO THE HEART OF IT WITH THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. . . . Important, touching, meaningful, and uplifting.”
–JEANNE RAY
Chicago Tribune

After a year away at college, military brat Bernadette Root has come “home” to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, to spend the summer with her bizarre yet comforting clan. Ruled by a strict, regimented Air Force Major father, but grounded in their mother’s particular brand of humor, Bernie’s family was destined for military greatness during the glory days of the mid-’50s. But in Base life, where an unkempt lawn is cause for reassignment, one fateful misstep changed the Roots’ world forever. Yet the family’s silence cannot keep the wounds of the past from reemerging . . . nor can the memory fade of beloved Fumiko, the family’s former maid, whose name is now verboten. And the secrets long ago covered up in classic military style–through elimination and denial–are now forcing their way to the surface for a return engagement.

“SARAH BIRD WRITES FICTION WITH SUCH ENERGY AND SNAP, HER NOVELS SEEM TO BE IN MOTION. . . . There’s a wheelbarrow of talent in the writer who can keep a reader laughing right up to the moment of startled apprehension when the depth of sorrow in the family’s history becomes clear.”
–The Dallas Morning News

“SWEET, POWERFUL, AND TERRIFYING, Sarah Bird’s talent . . . [is] nothing less than wondrous. This book is a beautiful and breathtaking treasure.”
–RICK BASS

“A LOVELY READ . . . [This novel] is a coming-of-age story, but one so ably fashioned, so tender at its core, that it can touch off both youthful longings and mature regrets in any reader with the slightest susceptibility to either.”
–New York Daily News

NOMINEE - New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age



Sarah Bird is the author of four previous novels: Virgin of the Rodeo, The Boyfriend School, Alamo House, and The Mommy Club. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, George, and son, Gabriel.


From the Hardcover edition.