Up from the Blue

Two-time Pushcart Prize-nominee and founder of the literary blog LitPark.com, Susan Henderson's debut novel Up from the Blue is a beautifully written coming-of-age tale wrapped in mystery. Set in 1975 against a backdrop of school busing, desegregation, feminism, and post-Vietnam wariness, Tillie Harris, an intuitive, unforgettable eight year-old protagonist, struggles to find her place within a quickly deteriorating family.
Tillie Harris's home is full of color, intimacy, and imagination-a manic and messy world with Mother at its center. But Mother's worsening depression can't be ignored-she barely gets out of bed some days-and soon she begins to jeopardize Father's rapid rise through the military ranks. As the family prepares to move to Washington, DC-where Father has accepted a top job at the Pentagon-the situation at home spirals out of control.
When Tillie arrives at the family's new home in Washington, Mother has vanished-a stunning development made even more disorienting by Father's refusal to discuss what transpired. As he tries to impose a new, orderly pattern to family life, Tillie's fertile imagination attempts to fill in the gaps, inventing elaborate narratives about what might have happened, and about her father's culpability. Through it all, Tillie holds fast to the hope that her mother will return to her-and that together they can flee Father's tedious conventions. But when, at last, the veil is lifted and the mystery revealed, Tillie discovers that the truth behind her mother's disappearance is far more complicated than she could have imagined.