Madeline “Mad” Hill is wrapping up a standard Saturday morning at her natural farm’s busy roadside stand when a PT Cruiser pulls up and a stranger, who appears clearly misplaced in a rural setting, will get out.
Prepared to present him instructions again to civilization, Mad is shocked when he as an alternative asks about her absent father, who walked out of her life over 20 years earlier than and hasn’t contacted her since.
Mad’s father, Chuck Hill, the natural farmer, apparently was Charles Hill, the thriller novelist … and the person standing earlier than her is Reuben “Rube” Hill, the son Charles Hill deserted 30 years in the past earlier than beginning a wholly new life with Mad’s mom.
The daddy with a southern drawl who appeared to like their Tennessee farm simply as a lot as Mad did was really a Boston native, and the adoption of his new accent was simply considered one of some ways her dad fully reinvented himself after leaving Rube and his mom behind.
That isn’t all: Rube has realized by way of a non-public investigator that their father repeated the method of beginning a brand new life after which strolling away, leaving a associate and little one behind with no clarification, at the very least two extra instances after leaving the farm.
Rube additionally has a lead about the place their dad is perhaps residing now.
Does Mad need to come alongside to fulfill her different siblings and hopefully confront their dad?
With a full appreciation of the absurdity of the state of affairs, Mad is not sure of the right way to react, noting that, “you weren’t presupposed to immediately get a brand new household at eleven o’clock on a Saturday after you’d offered out of eggs.”
However after all the reply finally ends up being “sure,” and thus kicks off the highway journey on the coronary heart of Kevin Wilson’s new humorous and heartwarming novel “Run for the Hills,” which follows Rube and Mad as they monitor down their different two siblings and, sure, finally their chameleon father as properly.
The primary cease is Oklahoma to fulfill their school basketball star sister, Pepper (who goes by “Pep” — their dad appreciated brief nicknames), adopted by a trek as much as Utah to fulfill Theron (“Tom”), a precocious 11-year-old whose emotional wounds from their dad’s departure are nonetheless contemporary.
Alongside the way in which, we study extra about their father’s many reinventions of himself — Pep knew him as a basketball coach named Chip, whereas Tom cherished making movies together with his cameraman dad, Carl — and likewise see the siblings attending to know one another and opening their hearts to the thought of being a household, nevertheless uncommon that household’s origins and totally different their personalities.
There are the same old hijinks and mishaps that come together with a highway journey, as properly, holding the story’s tone pretty gentle all through.
If the novel has a weak level, it might be within the payoff (or lack thereof) to the siblings’ seek for their dad, who doesn’t have the solutions any of them have been on the lookout for.
Wilson appears to lean into the concept folks and their motivations are messy and onerous to clarify, even to ourselves at instances, and that typically now we have to make peace with being unable to grasp another person’s selections.
But even these scenes of attempting and failing to attach with their dad are entertaining, and the siblings’ rising love for one another provides sufficient of an emotional increase to maintain this a feel-good learn.
Although they absolutely acknowledge how badly their father’s selections harm them, in addition they present the resilience crucial to understand the sudden brilliant aspect of getting some fairly superb siblings out of the state of affairs.
Summer time is an ideal time to select up a highway journey novel, and “Run for the Hills” is a good uplifting learn good for anybody within the temper for a narrative that’s essentially about folks being variety to one another whereas determining what issues most.
Street journeys and audiobooks go hand in hand, and I extremely suggest the audiobook model of this ebook, learn by Marin Eire and obtainable to Champaign Public Library cardholders by way of the library’s Libby app.
Mara Fass is an affiliate in technical companies on the Champaign Public Library.
