You can get whatever you want.
So Gwan: buy a new car – heck, buy three. He has two villas on the coast and abroad. Get a new wardrobe every day of the week, put rings on your fingers and toes and go wild. You can have whatever you want, but you can’t get your life back in Lee Smith’s new book, Silver Alert.
When Herb Atlas opened the door to his Key West villa, he couldn’t believe his eyes. His daughter-in-law had hired a middle-aged man, who was actually her child, to look after his wife Susan.
She was a real onlooker not so long ago, but his Susan was. Her charming and funny, everyone loved her. Later, juvenile Alzheimer’s disease caused Susan to become an unrecognizable, wild-haired woman that Herb knew little about.
But here, this kid who said her name was Lenny was doing Susan’s nails, and she kept Susan calm, quiet, and no mouse stings. did not. Herb immediately liked this girl. When she dropped her wallet and saw an ID card with a different name on it, he didn’t even care that she was probably lying.
He gave her two $100 bills and couldn’t wait to hire her again.
Two hundred dollars! Dee Dee was away from Mr. Atlas that afternoon thinking about what she could buy. She has decided not to go back to the pink trailer just yet. She didn’t want to run into Tony because she ended that her life.Dee Dee liked the new job he was chosen for and so did Susan.
Herb should have known about intervention when he saw it. His nephew Ricky was also there. After all, his extended family didn’t come together to enjoy it. Again, the 83-year-old man is neither getting horribly ill every day, nor is he willing to give up everything he knows and has worked hard for before finally grasping his life. is not.
To be honest, the plot of old seniors and caregivers running away in classic cars is suddenly ubiquitous, overused, almost overdone. But put that aside if you can. “Silver Alert” is a great novel.
What helps is that author Lee Smith’s two main characters are very compelling. Herb is a foul-mouthed and once proud man who hates the fact that he is old and is against it. Dee Dee is her uneducated country girl who desperately wants to fulfill her promise and overcome her terrible past. Their separate but intertwined stories are the kind you can’t wait to return to while you spend time with the others that make this novel truly enjoyable.A lesbian couple , a career woman’s daughter, an absent son, poor Susan, and Ricky, the cool voice of reason.
If you want a quick read with a great storyline and a surprise ending, ignore the tropes and reach for “Silver Alert”.
“Silver Alert: A Novel” by Lee Smith
Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, circa 2023. $27.00. 224 pages.
