Life and Other Love Songs

Family secrets and generational trauma take center stage in Gray’s (The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls) powerfully written historical novel. When Oz Armstead disappeared on his 37th birthday, his wife Deborah and 16-year-old daughter Trinity were devastated. Eight years later, in the 1980s, Deborah has him declared dead. Then the novel flashes back to the early 1960s, before the disappearance, to the period of Deborah’s and Oz’s courtship and the early years of their marriage. Detroit-born and -bred Deborah hopes to be discovered by Motown, but when circumstances force her to give up on stardom, her occasional drinking becomes worse. Deborah’s drinking plus the effects of Oz’s troubled childhood causes fractures in their marriage. In the after-disappearance period, Trinity and Deborah try to move on with their lives, but Trinity’s abandonment issues cause her to mess up her romantic relationship, while Deborah hits rock bottom. As Deborah begins to recover parts of her lost dreams, Trinity realizes she has to change her ways before they affect her son.