Among the town’s inhabitants, only JJ Ferguson seems to have succeeded: in the 15 years since he left Pinewood, he has become an enviably rich man. Watts creates tender, sympathetic portraits of her two main characters, women enveloped in grief: Sylvia’s for her dead son, Ava’s over her inability to conceive the child she desperately wants. Even those who have jobs-Sylvia, who works for a social service agency, and her daughter Ava, a college graduate who has risen to loan officer in a bank-see that they have fallen far short of achieving the American dream. The furniture industry that once served as the major employer has shifted its factories to Asia, leaving former workers feeling unmoored and depressed. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and other awards for her short fiction, Watts ( We Are Taking Only What We Need, 2011) spins a compelling tale of obsessive love and dashed dreams set in a struggling North Carolina town. "A powerful-and, in today's world, necessary-perspective on the American dream and the possibility of beginning again.The Great Gatsby is revived in an accomplished debut novel. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they've been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. JJ's return-and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava-not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town.
And Don, Sylvia's unworthy but charming husband, just won't stop hanging around.
Ava's mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. But as he re-enters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has.Īva is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term.
JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava.
Stephanie Powell Watts is a writer of wondrous skill, imagination, and sensitivity, and No One Is Coming to Save Us is a beautiful testament to that." Edward P. "A grand debut novel full of characters who come into a reader's mind and heart and never leave.
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