Description
Book SynopsisTells a coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of small-town Minnesota during the 1970s and told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old girl, Iris, who learns from her parents that she is adopted.
Trade ReviewIt's small-town Minnesota in the 1970s, and 11-year-old Iris' family is collapsing. At first, life is stable: her father runs the town creamery, her mother works from home, and she has all the trappings befitting a relatively privileged child of the decade, including her very own Barbie Beauty Shop. But when her parents tell her she's adopted, and then adopt a troubled older boy (following two miscarriages), her idyllic world cracks apart. Before long, Iris is shuffled between her separated parents and is forced to endure embarrassing gossip about her mother's new boyfriends. As Iris navigates the delicate transition from girlhood to adolescence, she does so against the backdrop of a splintered 1970s America, as chains push out mom-and-pop stores (the fate of her father's creamery), and divorce rates boom. The residents of her small town, however, aren't comfortable with "complicated" families, and Iris suffers as a result of their collective judgment. Panning's meditation on coming-of-age is so passionately wrought and richly detailed that, if readers didn't know better, they might think this was the authentic stuff of memoir.
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