Henry Holt & Company, July 2010
In the beginning there was Amy. Amy Henderson, who recalled seeing The Clash of the Titans with her father; who had made monster movies on a Super-8 camera with her childhood friend Mona; who at the age of 16 got on a bus to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a special effects artist, to make monsters out of clay; who swept quickly into Arthur Rook's world, changed it, and disappeared as suddenly when the touch of a loose wire sent thousands of volts into her finger, killing her instantly and setting into motion the events of This Must Be the Place.
This is not her story.
This is the story of Arthur Rook, broken and alone, following clues that lead him to a sleepy New York town and deeper into Amy's past than he ever expected to go.
In the beginning there was Amy. Amy Henderson, who recalled seeing The Clash of the Titans with her father; who had made monster movies on a Super-8 camera with her childhood friend Mona; who at the age of 16 got on a bus to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a special effects artist, to make monsters out of clay; who swept quickly into Arthur Rook's world, changed it, and disappeared as suddenly when the touch of a loose wire sent thousands of volts into her finger, killing her instantly and setting into motion the events of This Must Be the Place.
This is not her story.
This is the story of Arthur Rook, broken and alone, following clues that lead him to a sleepy New York town and deeper into Amy's past than he ever expected to go.
This is the story of Mona Jones, proprietor of the boarding house where Arthur lands, keeper of the secrets Arthur seeks, secrets that Amy left behind half a lifetime ago.
This is the story of Oneida Jones, Mona's daughter who is definitively NOT named after a spoon, and who, with the help of Mona and Arthur and a cast of other intriguing characters, will claw through her teenage years, striving to learn how to be human and comfortable in her own skin.
There are others to mention here, but doing so would undercut the narrative grace with which Kate Racculia brings them into existence. This Must Be the Place is sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes comic; it's a page-turner, a fun read with endless pop culture references that nonetheless digs into some elemental matters of human existence - identity, fear, and the most basic question of all - what is the point of it all? As Oneida eventually reasons,
"There was only the promise and the hope that other people can be good, are good, that other people are the reason we are alive on Earth at all."
This is Kate Racculia's magic. She breathes such life into her people, lovably flawed characters, each with their own agency and motives, that This Must Be the Place seems to arise from merely having set them upon the stage.
This is the story of Oneida Jones, Mona's daughter who is definitively NOT named after a spoon, and who, with the help of Mona and Arthur and a cast of other intriguing characters, will claw through her teenage years, striving to learn how to be human and comfortable in her own skin.
There are others to mention here, but doing so would undercut the narrative grace with which Kate Racculia brings them into existence. This Must Be the Place is sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes comic; it's a page-turner, a fun read with endless pop culture references that nonetheless digs into some elemental matters of human existence - identity, fear, and the most basic question of all - what is the point of it all? As Oneida eventually reasons,
"There was only the promise and the hope that other people can be good, are good, that other people are the reason we are alive on Earth at all."
This is Kate Racculia's magic. She breathes such life into her people, lovably flawed characters, each with their own agency and motives, that This Must Be the Place seems to arise from merely having set them upon the stage.
