Sign-In
Cart
900 Miles
Paperback
General FictionLiterary Fiction
ISBN13: 9781908600936
Publisher: Inspired Quill
Published: Mar 27 2020
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.56
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
Sudden luck strikes the one person who won't share the news.
It's a mega win on a weekly lotto ticket; a ton of cash.
But even though Christina's howls of triumph scare the cat, she can't tell her stepdad Harrison. Not even when a frustrated, off-the-cuff retort to a co-worker sets her free from a newspaper job she no longer needs anyway.
She fills notebook pages with bucket lists, but can't bring herself to just pick any. Wanting but not letting herself have, that's Christina all over.
But bit by bit, Christina's horizon widens. She lucks into a newer, quirkier job (to hide her win from Harrison), and the new office opens a whole new world right on her doorstep. When a black and white photograph helps her to discover friends of the finest kinds, fate wheels Christina on a 900-mile road trip to confront the young woman she could be, but can't yet face in the mirror.
For readers of Fredrik Backman, Anne Tyler and Rachel Joyce, but sharper around the edges, and unafraid to let its protagonist take their time and grow as gently as she needs to. Runyon builds a novel out of vignettes and near silences: what a person can't ask for, can't accept, can't yet believe is theirs. There's wit here too, and an authentic feeling for how fandoms and online friendship become someone's first honest community. A windfall story that spends its money on unhurried knowing.
-----
What impressed me about 900 Miles is the psychology of early emotional neglect: Christina can't easily spend her money because she's internalised the message that having stuff isn't for her. A Californian coming-of-age story bringing a more nuanced perspective to the usual sudden-riches narratives. - Anne Goodwin, Polari Prize shortlisted author and psychologist
It is remarkable to see such growth in an individual character... I've read some trilogies that don't quite manage this, and yet what Runyon does for Christina is not only believable, it is a privilege to witness. - Adam Burgess, Roof Beam Reader
Please note: This novel contains a suicide (off-page).
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback