After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

Bennie Rosato is surprised by the physical resemblance between her and her new client, and when her client announces she is Bennie's identical twin, Bennie doesn't believe her, but she finds herself drawn to her and as she investigates her client's case, she uncovers secrets her family would kill to keep from her.

A "perfect" marriage dissolves when the wife makes a tragic mistake and her husband uses it to gain custody of their children.

"This book documents the decline of white-working class lives over the last half-century and examines the social and economic forces that have slowly made these lives more difficult. Case and Deaton argue that market and political power in the United States have moved away from labor towards capital-as unions have weakened and politics have become more favorable to business, corporations have become more powerful. Consolidation in some American industries,...