When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondack Mountain town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a fiercely independent but loving woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, forcing Clara to build a new life for herself, far from her roots, far from her high-school boyfriend, and far from the life she had known. Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home. Tamar has become increasingly forgetful and can no longer live on her own. But, just as her mother's memory is beginning to slip away, Clara's questions are building: Why was Tamar so insistent that Clara leave home all those years ago? What secrets was she hiding? Does Clara, too, carry inside her the gene for early-onset Alzheimer's? And, if so, what does that mean for her own future?
"[A] quietly powerful novel...Fans of Sara Baume, Holly Chamberlin, and Francesca Segal will appreciate McGhee's magnetic prose and her ability to pack a richly detailed story into a slim novel. Atmospheric and introspective, Never ComingBack will resonate with those who have lost a parent to illness or estrangement but still have questions they'd like to be answered."
Booklist
"A luminous novel...the author's gift for subtly poetic language and her believable dialogue make Clara's journey worth following. McGhee has an almost musical ability to repeat the themes of her novel with enough variation to keep them fresh. Fierce, complicated characters appear to grow out of the severe Adirondack landscape, and McGhee swerves away from sentimentality in addressing the relentle
Kirkus Reviews
"[A] poignant meditation on the relationship between a mother and daughter...Though this well-written story will appeal to a broad range of readers for its rich characterization, mothers and daughters will especially find Clara's and Tamar's story moving and memorable."
