THE HOUSE WHERE THE HARDEST THINGS HAPPENED: A Memoir About Belonging

Beginning with a child's view of a church where "everybody loved us," Caley relates her adult fixation on the day when this church ejected her mother for having "broken the covenant" by working in a restaurant that served alcohol. Caley's brothers wonder why she still thinks about this—it occurred nearly 35 years ago—and her mother feigns forgetfulness before finally admitting that she remembers the names of her ousters. The adult Caley seems shocked by the realization that these people weren't strangers, but women "I still meet sometimes at the post office or the October Fair. Women I know," yet this information doesn't propel her to confront them to discuss the event and its effects. Caley doesn't explore the possibility that perhaps the reasons for her family's ejection from the smalltown New Hampshire church may have had more to do with her father's nervous breakdown or her brother's being gay. Her quest for answers is unsatisfyingly shallow, and her search for God leads her only as far as another Protestant church. Caley is admittedly concerned about hurting her mother by examining these old wounds, which may explain her investigation's superficiality. However, readers are left with more questions than the author addresses. What's missing is the perspective of an adult recalling distant childhood events, some revelation of new information, an epiphany of emotions about what happened or psychological insight. Instead, Caley's view seems stuck in the eyes of the six-year-old she once was, forever craving an imagined world of perfect adults and unconditional love. Agent, Joseph Durepos. (On sale June 18)