This is about the life of Tooly - who is a book store owner in Wales. A very small bookstore that only gets one or two customers a day. But Tooly is happy with puttering around the old books and living out her life.
Until one day she gets a call telling her that her father is dying. Really this isn't her father - it is someone who raised her - but was like a father to her. So she leaves the bookstore in the hands of her assistant Fogg and takes herself across the sea to America where he lives.
This is where the story gets interesting. As it turns out, Tooly was kidnapped by her real father when she was very young and she spent her growing up years in foreign locales where her father and she could hide. One day her mother shows up out of nowhere and kidnaps Tooly again where she spends the rest of her growing up years with a bunch of grifters and sheisters. Her approach to the human race is colored by these relationships and for this reason she finds it hard to maintain relationships.
The story shifts back and forth between her years spent with her father and then her mother and her current life taking care of the fatherly man who is dying.
This was a great story despite the fact that I had a hard time shifting between the stories she was telling. Once I made a mental note to check the chapter headings I was able to switch much easier.
Rating: 8 / 10
ISBN: 9780679643654
Publisher: The Dial Press
Edition: 1st Edition