Flood: A Novel

About this book

A sparkling debut set in Mark Twains boyhood town Flood is a story of what it means to be lost . . . and found. Laura Brooks fled her hometown of Hannibal Missouri ten years ago after a historic flood and personal heartbreak. Now shes returned unannounced and her family and friends dont know what to make of it. She says shes just home for a brief visit and her high-school reunion but shes carrying too much luggage for that: literal and metaphorical. Soon Laura is embroiled in small-town affairs -- the contentious divorce of her rowdy best friend Rose; the campaign of her twelve-year-old godson Bobby to become the towns official Tom Sawyer; and the renewed interest of the man Laura once thought shed marry Sammy McGuire. Leaving town when she was eighteen had been Lauras only option. She feared a stifling existence in a town ruled by its past its mythological devotion to Mark Twain and the economic and racial divide that runs as deep as the Mississippi River. She cant forget that fateful Fourth of July when the levees broke or the decisions that still haunt her. Now as the Mississippi rises again a deep wound threatens to reopen and Laura must decide if running away once more might be the best way to save herself.