Melanie McCabe is the award-winning author of four poetry collections and a memoir, HIS OTHER LIFE: Searching for My Father, His First Wife and Tennessee Williams. Her stunning first work of fiction is ROAD LONGER THAN MEMORY, which is instantly engaging and identifiable with protagonist Sara Barlow.

"Plot twists that rival a hairpin-turn road snaking along a cliff edge titillate the reader’s imagery. Take a ride on ROAD LONGER THAN MEMORY, one of the best debut novels I have enjoyed in years."

The split-time tale volleys readers between recollections from 1976 and current-day 1986, when Sara becomes a teacher at her alumna school. She spies in the gym a man shooting hoops. He has a shock of skunk-like white hair surrounded by coal-black, which causes her suppressed memory pot to boil over. She links all bad life events to the construction of Interstate 66, a “slash of progress through the neighborhood we loved,” in Arlington, Virginia.

“Skunk” is the whispered moniker of Mark Raleigh, whom Sara and almost-boyfriend Devlin Barrie saw kill Nina Farley a decade ago. This is the cause of Sara’s tormented flashbacks and eggshell-fragile emotional status, not to mention her failed relationship and career in Wisconsin before moving back to her mom’s house. “I remembered it, all too well, but my memory was useless without my voice to tell the story.”

Sara’s Plain-Jane persona was attracted to charismatic Devlin in high school, not her male counterpart, Henry Truett. His Texas twang, cowboy boots and unstylish hats kept him at the fringe of the northern Virginia in-crowd. 

Sara travels a long road to realize that her destination was at hand in 1976 had she not been driving blindfolded. 

Plot twists that rival a hairpin-turn road snaking along a cliff edge titillate the reader’s imagery. Take a ride on ROAD LONGER THAN MEMORY, one of the best debut novels I have enjoyed in years.