Rest Home Runaways by Clifford HendersonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
You could say that there were three main stories here, three plotlines to follow – all three of which have their own lead POV. Two of the three are awesome brilliant great stories. The third was kind of . . . okay-ish.
Plotline One: Mac Ronzio and his wife live in his daughter (and daughter-in-law’s) house. Mac’s in his 80s (I believe, or maybe that’s just Cora who is in her 80s and I ‘assumed’ stuff I shouldn’t have), has vision trouble (can only see out of the side of his eyes), and can no longer do much of what he used to do (like repair things). The plotline starts with Mac putting a puzzle together with the help of his wife. Somewhere along the way Mac goes to make tea but is somewhat forgetful and forgets certain things. Wanders back to the puzzle – continues working on it. Effie, the wife, wanders into the kitchen and notes that Mac forgot to do stuff, like put the lid on the tea-kettle and other stuff, and that she’d do it.
Time passes. Massive waves of sound assault Mac’s ears. Ringing. Ringing. Mac looks over and notices waves of black smoke coming out of the kitchen. He mutters to his wife something like ‘I thought you were taking care of it!’ to which his wife, naturally, responds with something like ‘I’m dead, moron.’ And then Mac remembers (Mac doesn’t exactly have memory issues so much as he sees his dead wife and occasionally forgets that she is dead). But he is still being engulfed by waves of smoke.
Plotline One follows Mac and his dead wife as he moves from living with his daughter and daughter-in-law to living in an old person’s home, then fleeing said old person’s home.
Plotline Two: Morgan Ronzio putters around in a burned out kitchen. Starring at things, waiting for her wife Treat to appear, waiting for Treat’s nephew/contractor to appear. Randomly eats cheese (well, food, I’ve made it cheese for no known reason). Worries about her wife and whether the wife is fooling around – knows her relationship is in trouble, and it wasn’t helped that her father was living with them (especially as he was in the room across the hall which killed the little sex they still had). Is sad that she had to put her father into an old folk’s home. And to make matters worse, it’s Treat who wanted Mac to stay – as the book puts it, paraphrasing – she’s, Treat, Mexican and they care for family.
Plotline Two follows 50+ year old Morgan as she putters around worried about her father and her wife, and suffers waves of hot flashes. And, eventually, chasing after her fleeing father.
Plotline Three: Cora moved into the old folk’s home because of issues with her husband. He’s gone now, but she hasn’t left because she’s gotten used to living there – and her friends are there. Friends like Sonia and Nell. One day the old folk’s home goes on an outing (all but those in wheelchairs since the bus that can handle that kind of thing is in the shop). While visiting the mall and waiting for all the old people to be removed from the van and herded into the mall, the three women watch as the van is rear-ended, watch as their van driver (who ends up sliding over to plotline two and wandering with Morgan while Morgan chases Mac, so I should have gotten his name but I forget it now – I’ll call him Jake just to give him a name) argues with the teen driver who rear-ended the van. Cora counts. One person is wandering across the parking lot! The classic car crazed old man is collected (I believe this actually occurred before the rear-ending, but whatever). But . . . another person is missing! Mac! An assumption is made that he went in to use the restroom. Time passes. Hot sun cooks old people. More time passes. Jake continues arguing with the teen. Cora and/or one of her two friends notice Mac driving past in a utility cart. He’s fleeing! Cora, Nell, and Sonia start to go after him, then notice – the keys are still in the van! And so, naturally, they take the van. By this point, though, they’ve lost track of Mac. And are somewhat aimlessly driving around.
Plotline Three follows the three women as they wander in a van searching for Mac.
Plotline One and Three – all the ones with the old folks, were great fun – exciting, touching, moving. Plotline two, and the reason why this book falls into ‘Lesbian Fiction’, was less fun. Morgan isn’t exactly fun to hang around with inside her head. She’s a bundle of nerves, overheating from the sun, from hot flashes, from life; worrying about everything; feeling waves of guilt; feeling waves of jealousy; feelings . . . lots and lots of stuff. But there were some fun moments with Morgan as well, even a few touching ones – still, less fun than the other two plotlines.
This is a book that I have spent time on and off my maybe pile. I wasn’t really sure what it might be about, really, nor if I really wanted to read yet another road trip book. But this was different than I expected (I kind of had in my mind that it’d be some variation of Robin Alexander’s story about the two old women who drag two younger women along on a road trip (The Trip) – wasn’t so much that I didn’t like that story, I liked it well enough, it was more I’d already read it – but this story here, the Rest Home Runaways one, is nothing like that story – for one thing, the three different groups of people are all off on their own adventures, not all together in one massive RV).
This was a great multi-generational/multi-cultural journey through a small section, about 126 mile section, of California. From boring conservative Fresno to cool breezy, nude-beach having Santa Cruz.
I look forward to trying another book by this author (who is neither a large dog (Clifford the Big Red Dog) nor a man).
Rating: 4.44
April 14 2017
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