All I Have in This World

The stylish eighth novel from Parker (The Watery Part of the World) brings together a pair of unlikely but likeable protagonists. Marcus Banks’s quixotic attempt to create a farm and educational center devoted to the Venus flytrap on his family’s swampy North Carolina acreage has ended with the property being foreclosed by the bank. Making for Mexico, he stops in Pinto Canyon, Tex., for a hike, and while he’s gone, his pickup truck is stolen. Meanwhile, Maria has taken a leave of absence from her job as a chef in Oregon to return to Pinto Canyon and help her mother, Harriet, run a motel. Ten years earlier, Maria fled the town after her high school boyfriend committed suicide. Maria decides she needs her own car and bumps into Marcus at a used car lot, where they find they both like the same 1984 sky-blue Buick Electra. The two strike an unusual but pragmatic agreement to become half-owners of the car, which Marcus nicknames “Her Lowness.” While sharing the Buick, the troubled Marcus and restless Maria gradually overcome their initial mutual suspicion. The growing friendship between the two makes for the most engaging aspect of this story of the Texas desert. (Mar.)