REVIEWED BY SUE CORBETT
NOVEL
Aspiring graphic novelist Nathan Empson accepts a job driving an aging aristocrat from her Cleveland mansion to her summer home in Maine—easy money, he thinks. But her failing health complicates matters. And Nathan vastly underestimates how much his status as hired help will affect the way he's treated. His missteps, involving a fistfight, a house fire and a fling with the Episcopal priest's nanny, are almost too painful to laugh at. What saves him from being pathetic is his grief over his mother's death, which caused him to leave college and drift aimlessly. You want to slap him, then remember he's already been struck. No beach read, this is an introspective tragicomedy about depression, class and finding a mooring in life.
