Leaving Maggie Hope

Published October, 2003 – For David Lear, ten years old, there has never been anybody quite like his mother. She can be so caring, so warm and funny, but there are times when her drinking sweeps her away, and her affection gives way to verbal abuse, and sometimes even violence. Then David tries to run away from home, and is sent away to boarding school. To confront the legacy of his family, he spends time with a father he hasn’t seen in years, a stepmother who loathes him, and a mysterious benefactress who pays for his schooling. They offer bits and pieces of revelation, but at the center is his mother, Maggie Hope, whose life has long since slipped from its moorings.

Leaving Maggie Hope is the most moving coming-of-age story I have read in many years. The pain of having an unreliable mother is scary and very real and so is David’s journey toward a hard-won self-reliance as he learns that love may be found in surprising places. Like Kaye Gibbons’ novel Ellen Foster, this is a book for all ages to read and read again.
— Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls and Fair and Tender Ladies