"A magnum opus for our morally complex times from the author of Freedom Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother--her only family--is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother has always concealed her own real name, or how she can ever...

"The Harper family refutes the old expression "there's no such thing as bad publicity" when Bubba gets a video camera and his heavily edited footage winds up on Raytown public access cable TV. Mama could use a personality coach, which might have helped in her campaign against neighbor Iola Boylen for president of the Church Ladies League. But despite her crankiness, Thelma Harper does the right thing after the bank ATM spits out $20 bills like a slot...