The Secret of the Nightingale Palace: A Novel
This cross-generational road trip spans both the continent and the years as an estranged grandmother and granddaughter reconnect while driving from New York to San Francisco on a mysterious mission to return a collection of Japanese art to its rightful owner. While Anna, a 35-year-old widow unable and unwilling to move forward with her life, and Goldie, a waspishly stylish octogenarian, drive across the country, Goldie shares some well-hidden secrets from her life in San Francisco in the 1940s, including her passionately tangled relationship with a Japanese family. After undertaking this enlightening trip down memory lane with her grandmother, Anna is finally able to acknowledge and come to grips with her own emotional paralysis. As with most well-crafted literary journeys, it’s not really about the destination, but this one does feature a sweetly surprising, cinematically styled twist at the end of the road. An ideal recommendation for the book-club set. --Margaret Flanagan