Listen free for 30 days
-
Perris, California
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Perris, California
Buy Now for $26.22
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
“This novel will live alongside classics of young womanhood.” —Susan Straight, author of bestsellers Mecca and In the Country of Women
In this unforgettable debut novel, twenty-seven-year-old Tessa, pregnant with her third child and living in a trailer on her mother-in-law’s property, encounters the woman she used to love—leading Tessa to question the very foundations of the life she’s built
Abandoned first by her father and then her mother, as a girl Tessa is left to live with her abusive stepfather and stepbrother. She survives by finding reserves of strength in herself, and by the surprising, transformative love of another teenage girl, Mel, who sees through Tessa’s tough exterior to the vulnerable, scarred, loving woman inside. When she suddenly loses Mel, too, Tessa stumbles into a saving grace of a different kind with Henry and his mama, Angie, becoming a mother and finding herself in a familial existence that somehow carries her into adulthood—until the day she runs into Mel, who has just returned to Perris after years away.
Filled with violence, tragedy, tenderness, longing, and the unvarnished courage of women living in a mostly unseen America, Perris, California is the utterly gripping story of Tessa’s journey from trauma to healing, and it introduces us to one of the most indelible female characters since Bone Boatwright in Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina or Ruth Langmore in Ozark.
What the critics say
“An emotionally charged portrait of two women’s painful family histories and their uneasy reunion in California’s Inland Empire . . . Fans of Dorothy Allison or Pam Houston ought to seek this out.”—Publishers Weekly
“An extraordinary debut that insists that we can—and must—mend each other.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Some stories grab you, shake you to the core, and never let you go, demanding you to stare into the heart of human depravity and resilience. Other stories capture you by stealth, quiet beauty unfolding in ordinary moments: a conversation ’round a table, the unexpected smile of a neighbor, the wind on your face as you run. Harrowing, evocative, and deeply moving, Perris, California does both. Rachel Stark reminds us that in the smallest acts of kindness center the most enormous acts of love. This is a remarkable novel of human beings fully being—where what we do to each other sits side by side with what we do for each other.”—Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress