There are two wrecks in this novel. The first is a collision between a freight train and a car, which kills the car driver, Miles Zapf, and the second is the state of mind of the narrator and central character, Rachel aka Rocky.

The death of Miles, a local young man about whom we know only fragments, is a random and pointless event, in the sense that it could be an accident, suicide, poor track maintenance, overworked drivers or simply just one of those things.

Rachel is a wreck because she has unexplained rashes and skin conditions, a demanding daughter, an elderly father, and cats. It is all too much. Miles is dead, she thinks she might be dying and she is wondering about the point of it all, while carrying on preparing for Thanksgiving and visiting dermatologists and hospitals. It doesn’t sound like a funny and optimistic novel but it is, even as we all walk a narrow line between living and being, inevitably, dead and cannot help but wonder what the point of it all is.

Rachel ruminates about all this against the backdrop of her daughter Willa’s adolescent determination to be extreme, her father’s occasional confusion and the fact that her son, Jamie, works for a consulting company which has advised the railroad management making him, in some eyes at least, almost complicit in the death of Miles. It’s a crazy mix and also manages to be funny, although the subject matter is often dark.

In the end, everything gets wrapped up, although Miles has definitely died and Rachel has some kind of prognosis, but you understand that life will just roll on like this to the end and that is what living is. It is something to be valued, and the exploration of this makes for an excellent novel from a highly talented writer.