Description: Isabelle -- a woman in her 30s without any of the trappings of a "grown-up" life -- has just been fired from her job at a San Francisco phone company. Returning to the Midwestern suburb of her childhood, Standardsville, Illinois, she contends with her dating single mother, a neighbor who once appeared on The Honeymooners, and an ex-boyfriend. She also gets mixed up with a temp agency that specializes in a form of temp espionage. As a "mystery shopper" Isabelle finds herself posing as a variety of potential tenants for newly built gated communities on the outskirts of Standardsville, to assess their exclusive services. Enchanted by the possibilities of disguise, Isabelle spins a web of lies that keeps the world at a distance until she unearths long-kept secrets that force her to rethink everything she thought she knew.

Insightful and entertaining, this gracefully written novel explores a generation defined by reinvention, in a landscape gradually being devoured by developers. Depicting the comedy of being a grown-up still coming of age, Maud Casey reveals how people narrate their lives to counter the randomness of modern existence.

Please Wait