The Olivers, a warm, Jewish family in Washington, DC, have secrets. There’s a bridge collapse they don’t talk about. Any reference to a giant creature said to be part-man, part-moth is verboten as well. This ominous cryptid, called The Mothman, was seen in West Virginia in the days before the Silver Bridge tumbled into the Ohio River in 1967. Also, the family doesn’t speak of the scars that crisscross the back of Cassie Klein, the protagonist of this whimsical novel that explores the not-to-be- mentioned traumas rippling through the lives of three generations of women.
Orphaned at two, Cassie never understood what her parents were doing in West Virginia, on that bridge, on that fateful day. Leaving the smoldering ruins of her marriage, Cassie takes her badly behaved puppy on a road trip. As she sets off to decipher the secrets, a band of colorful characters (including one enigmatic “cryptozoologist”) come to her aid.
Real Life and Other Fictions explores the corrosive power of secrets – and what it takes to survive
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Fiction
Real Life & Other Fictions
- From the Publisher
September 1, 2023
Discussion Questions
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