Coming to Terms — Anna Murdoch

This novel, set in rural upstate New York, draws together characters from three generations with very different backgrounds and values. Uncle Percy, 72, is infirm, irascible, and poor. He has never married, and his only remaining family is a far-flung one of cousins and nieces. His niece, Joelene Mathieson, is persuaded to come from California to care for him since she needs a home and a way to escape her ex-lover, a man with mob connections. Joelene drives cross-country in a broken-down, bright orange mustang with a black top accompanied by her pot-smoking teenage son, George, who is a high school dropout. How these three come to terms with themselves and with each other, finding love and meaning in family ties they have never experienced before, provides a heartwarming story as well as a wonderful insight into life in small town America with all its absurdities, eccentricities, and wonderment.