Made in the U.S.A.

Made in the U.S.A, by Billie Letts

I was able to win a copy of this book from All About {N} last month.  I started it yesterday and finished it this evening.

Lutie and Fate McFee (15 and 11, respectively) are living in Spearfish, SD with their father's ex-girlfriend when she unexpectedly dies in the check-out line at Walmart.  Questioned by the police and faced with the foster care system, Lutie and Fate steal her car and head out to find their Dad in Las Vegas.  What they find is dark, distrubing, and hopeful.  They end up in Hugo, OK, with a circus family, where they try to find a place to belong.

Billie Letts first novel was Where The Heart Is, which honestly, I can't remember if I've read.  Since I can't remember, I'm going to say that I haven't.  But I have read, Honk and Holler Opening Soon, which I adored.  She has a talent for (strange names that for some reason work) believable, marginalized characters that are usually on the raw end of hopeless and almost always need just a little bit of help to get themselves back to rights.

In Made, Lutie and Fate have lost both their parents to one thing or another, and been neglected their entire lives.  Scared and not sure how to remain safe and fed, they make terrible decisions.  It was really hard to read the beginning parts of this book because you just want to scoop them both up and hug them and say, "here, let me help you."  And you want to save them from themselves.

It didn't "fix" itself enough for me, and the ending felt a tad rushed.  Or ... I'm not sure.  I was so uncomfortable yet riveted to the first parts of the novel I think I expected an equal measure of relief when they finally came to a place to settle and when that didn't happen I was a tad disappointed.

I will say that her description of Las Vegas was a bit ... dramatic.  It is called Sin City but there are many houses off the strip and an Air Force Base and regular people that live there too.  I think the Governor of that state would take issue with her descriptions.  And at some points she makes it sound like all that stuff is only possible in Vegas ... and it really, sadly, happens everywhere.

All in, a good book.  Very glad I read it.  Obviously I was caught up in the story and characters as I flew through it, and it's got some pretty dark subject matter.  I read the author's note / short story at the end and the interview and Lett's personal story explains a great deal of why she wrote some of this.  Her and her husband took on some foster kids for a time, and some of this is what she feared for them, or maybe even what she heard of from them.

But the last question from Lett's was really sad.  Her husband of 50 years died last year.  This book was dedicated to him.  When asked what she was working on next, Letts answered that she was unsure, because she's adjusting to life alone.  She admits, she may have lost her muse.

I say read this one.  And then hug your children.  And your grandmother.