POCKETFUL OF POSEYS
a novel by THOMAS REED
September, 2023 • Beaufort Books
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BRONZE MEDAL
FOR GENERAL FICTION
FLORIDA BOOK AWARDS
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“It’s hard work, starving to death! No little treats when you can’t think of anything else to do. … When this is over—I want you all to take a trip.”
–Cinny Posey, matriarch of the Posey family
THE POSEY FAMILY LOVE EACH OTHER; they just can’t always tolerate each other. Matriarch Cinny, a product of Woodstock and the free-spirited 60’s, is a loving but overly-open mother. Her deceased husband, Frank, was more staid. Their now adult twins still clash: Grace, who is wealthy and buttoned-up, believes Brian once betrayed her; and Brian, who came out as bisexual in high school, still feels the pain of being different and of being second to Grace’s endless successes. Sprinkle in differing politics and suffice it to say that family gatherings are tense. Possibly a disaster.
When diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Cinny decides to stop eating. During hospice care, she’s inspired to create and leave the funds for a worldwide trip, where the surviving family will travel to deposit hers and Frank’s ashes in places that had been meaningful to them: New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland. And a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop. It’s her way to force the entire family to spend time together and heal their rifts. Hopefully. But she also wants to share some family history that they should know, even if it’s painful.
As the family members strip away the humor they use as a buffer, and as they face past failures and betrayals, the Poseys are able to see one anothers’ failings with greater compassion, to forgive, and to re-connect—in part because of the new step-grandkid Sage, who faces her difficult family life with an unsettling candor. A raw, ribald, darkly comic and ultimately moving story of a divided family trying to heal.
PRAISE for POCKETFUL OF POSEYS
…moving…fast-paced…This upbeat story triumphs thanks to its veracity and memorable characters.
Quickview - Our verdict: Get it. (Read the full review here)
—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…" (Read the full review here)
−FOREWORD REVIEWS
Tom Reed is a raconteur of the best and rarest kind: a spell-binding, curl-up-in-your-armchair-and-let-the-afternoon-slip-away storyteller. 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 heart-breakingly sad to the side-splittingly funny.
−SUSAN CHOI, author of Trust Exercise
“We have the Durrells of Corfu, the Wapshots of St. Botolphs, and now the Poseys of New Hampshire—the rockbound land of Live Free or Die. Witty, dark, picaresque, and joyously contrarian, the saga of the Posey 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
The old advice has it that great novelists should be great noticers. If so, then Thomas Reed is of the first rank. POCKETFUL OF POSEYS abounds with the warp and weft of the contemporary, often with a comic awareness of how these fabrics are woven in. But for me it is the outbursts of wisdom and poignancy, often completely unexpected in his dramatic scenes, that are the even greater achievement. Thus, maybe the thing Reed notices best, when one comes to the end, is how family is always forged in change. To read POCKETFUL OF POSEYS is to experience this startling thought, so relevant to what makes fiction meaningful, anew.
—RICK MOODY, author of Hotels of North America and The Ice Storm
“…a clever dark comedy that mines heavy topics with a light touch. Reed takes us on a hilarious family trip, rife with sibling rivalry and generational conflict, to four continents, all to unearth long held family secrets one envelope at a time. Enjoy the ride!”
−TESS CALLAHAN, author of April and Oliver and Dawnland
… 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 of Lacie’s Secrets
“A poignant and entertaining family odyssey that takes the reader all across the globe with the grown children and grandchildren of Cinny Posey and her husband Frank as they scatter the couple’s ashes, fulfilling Cinny’s wishes and revealing the secrets she couldn’t share in her lifetime.”
−VIRGINIA PYE, author of The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann
A funny, authentic, and contemporary story of the shifting dynamics between two adult siblings and their families in the wake of their mother’s death. A trip around the world turns into a journey into the past as secrets are revealed and new connections are forged. Reed’s dialogue sparkles.
—SUSAN PERABO, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow
“Grippingly poignant and elegantly profound, POCKETFUL OF POSEYS will have you laughing in one moment and crying in the next as you journey with the adult children of the Posey family to scatter their parents ashes across the globe, but in doing so they surprisingly learn far more about their parents’ lives and subsequently their own lives, than they ever could have anticipated. A must read for anyone who has ever experienced...life.”
—LIZ MACCIE, author of Lessons I Never Learned at Meadowbrook Academy
Buckle up and circle the globe with the Poseys’ six surviving family members as they sprinkle Cinny and Frank’s ashes everywhere from a remote Thai island to St. Peter’s piazza in Rome to a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Thomas Reed’s delightful POCKETFUL OF POSEYS will have you laughing and crying from the very first chapter.
—TULLAN HOLMQVIST, author of The Woman in the Park
— Where to buy POCKETFUL OF POSEYS —
ALSO by THOMAS REED
Finalist in the 2018 Indies Book of the Year Award in the Historical Fiction Category
Thomas Reed’s debut novel, Seeking Hyde, recounts the fascinating history of Robert Louis Stevenson’s epic horror story, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is the tale of a young author defying his father’s wishes by becoming a spinner of romantic yarns. It is the tale of his American wife, ten years older than he, driving her husband hard to write one more great novel before his chronic lung disease carries him away. It is the tale of Stevenson reeling under charges from the mother of an old friend that he had fueled her son’s fatal alcoholism through his recklessly Bohemian ways.