Someone is telling the story of the life of Charlie Barnes, and it doesn't appear to be going well. Too often divorced, discontent with life's compromises and in a house he hates, this lifelong schemer and eternal romantic would like out of his present circumstances and into the American dream. But when the twin calamities of the Great Recession and a cancer scare come along to compound his troubles, his dreams dwindle further, and an infinite past...

"Some things should be kept private. Frances Snyder can never quite get her mother's voice out of her headhow to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother. Frances's home life is demanding, and while she's busy seeing to everyone else's needs, Frances doesn't have the luxury of spare time. So when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, she thinks that she can handle it on her own. Dealing with endless tests, brutal chemotherapy, and the looming specter...

"A modern-day Flaubert takes us on a comic tour through a deeply neurotic Mexico City by way of the life of a successful lawyer struck with a rare cancer of the tongue" --

Betty Jewel Hughes was once the hottest black jazz singer in Memphis. But when she finds herself pregnant and alone, she gives up her dream of being a star to raise her beautiful daughter, Billie, in Shakerag, Mississippi. Now, ten years later, in 1955, Betty Jewel is dying of cancer and looking for someone to care for Billie when she's gone. With no one she can count on, Betty Jewel does the unthinkable: she takes out a want ad seeking a loving mother...