Description

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When your dying mother has one last request, how can you say no?

Grace Tingley and Brian Posey are forty-something twins whose lives have gone in very different directions. Grace, now a private school teacher in coastal Connecticut, was a PhD candidate at Yale when an unexpected pregnancy threw her plans into a tailspin. Brian, an adventure travel executive in Seattle, barely scraped through an obscure New England college and recently married Ella, after three years in an intimate relationship with a charismatic man from Jamaica.

When their widowed mother Cinny, a charter member of Woodstock Nation, is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Grace and Brian are there for her last days in hospice care. This is where Cinny reveals her staggering plan for the siblings: They’re to sprinkle her ashes, mixed with their father’s, at a series of exotic locations around the globe—some remote, some challengingly public, all known and loved by the Poseys.

Joined by their own immediate families, Grace and Brian set off on a funereal odyssey that uncovers more about their parents’ relationship, and themselves, than the twins find it easy to admit.

By turns hilarious, profound, jarring, and poignant, Pocketful of Poseys bounds dizzily across the United States to New Zealand, Thailand, Italy, and more, as the last of Cinny Posey’s secrets are exposed, and her survivors are forced to confront the strength of the ties that bind them all together—for worse and for better.

About the Author

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Thomas Reed has spent twenty years exploring, teaching, and writing about the life and times of Robert Louis Stevenson. His non-fiction book, The Transforming Draught: Jekyll and Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the Victorian Alcohol Debate (McFarland, 2006), examines the outsized role of Drink in Stevenson's career and culture. In the course of his research, Reed stumbled across a profound historical irony rooted in the social impact of Stevenson's famous novel. Only by stepping into the realm of fiction could he explore the strange turnings of the author's fate in a way they positively cried out for. Thomas Reed studied at Yale, the University of Virginia, and Oxford, and spent three decades teaching Victorian and medieval literature at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He recently moved to Sarasota, Florida, to take up writing full time, where he lives with his wife Dorothy and writes each day at his grandfather's antique desk. On occasional afternoons, they stroll to the local tiki bar to enjoy the sunset and raise a glass to the spirit of Stevenson.

Praise For…

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“Moving . . . engaging . . . The story is fast-paced, giving the reader the feel of the family’s rapid travel through Asia and Europe . . . This upbeat story triumphs thanks to its veracity and memorable characters.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Emotional… and very well written. I found wanting to know what happened in Cinny’s letters kept me up reading a little later than I should. Overall I really loved following them on their journey.” —Heather Barksdale, author and blogger 

". . . moving . . . engaging . . . The story is fast-paced, giving the reader the feel of the family’s rapid travel through Asia and Europe . . . This upbeat story triumphs thanks to its veracity and memorable characters." — Kirkus Reviews

"Simultaneously heartwrenching and comical, Thomas Reed’s novel Pocketful of Poseys follows a family from the death of their matriarch to their journey to scatter her ashes . . . Subtle and meaningful." — Foreword Reviews

"Grippingly poignant and elegantly profound, POCKETFUL OF POSEYS will have you laughing in one moment and crying in the next. A must read for anyone who has ever experienced—life." — Liz Maccie, author of Lessons I Never Learned at Meadowbrook Academy and film producer

"Tom Reed is a raconteur of the best and rarest kind. Turn the wi-fi off, put the kettle on, and let his storytelling carry you into the past, around the world, and down every channel of human experience from the heartbreakingly sad to the side-splittingly funny." — Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise

"Pocketful of Poseys is a clever dark comedy that mines heavy topics with a light touch. Reed takes us on a hilarious family trip, rife with sibling rivalry. Enjoy the ride!" — Tess Callahan, author of April and Oliver and Dawnland

"Witty, dark, picaresque, and joyously contrarian, the saga of the Tingley family will warm your heart, make you cringe, and ultimately lift your spirit. Another outstanding novel from Thomas Reed." — Robert Olmstead, author of Savage Country 
  
"A poignant and entertaining family odyssey that takes the reader all across the globe." — Virginia Pye, author of The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann

"Pocketful of Poseys is a tour de force and a tour of the world that takes you out of your comfort zone and into the shadowy secret life of a mother who sacrificed again and again." — Teresa Sorkin, author, The Woman in the Park and Lacie’s Secrets

“A funny, authentic, and contemporary story. A trip around the world turns into a journey into the past as secrets are revealed. Reed's dialogue sparkles.” — Susan Perabo, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow

"Thomas Reed’s delightful Pocketful of Poseys will have you laughing and crying from the very first chapter." — Tullan Holmqvist, author, The Woman in the Park and Lacie's Secrets