Donna Has Left the Building

A recovering alcoholic flees her suburban life for a road trip in this witty romp from Gilman (Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress). Donna Koczynski, five years sober and still struggling against her craving for a drink, has been selling kitchenware in Troy, Mich., for more than a decade—a far cry from her dreams of forming a punk band. When Donna arrives home early from a disappointing work conference, Donna discovers her dentist husband with a dominatrix. She immediately packs up the family Subaru, buys a guitar, and makes her way from Michigan to New York on a trip filled with many stalls and mishaps, including an ill-advised trip to a former boyfriend in Nashville. When Donna feels there is no way things could get worse, she gets an emergency phone call that her college-age daughter has fallen ill while traveling in Greece. Donna flies over and, after the two reunite, finds kindness and generosity in a country ravaged by an economic crisis and realizes her problems pale in comparison. Donna is reliably irreverent (“I’m an alcoholic. A founding member of the Margarita Mafia, as a bunch of us on the PTA at my daughter’s middle school once christened ourselves”) and her travels follow a moving evolution to renewed confidence as she comes to terms with mistakes and regrets. Fans of Jonathan Tropper will love this. [em](June) [/em]