A young woman with a reading disability finds an unexpected way into the written word when she crosses paths with a famous poet. A recent community college dropout, narrator Carla "doesn't process words on a page very well" and claims to be perfectly happy working for a landscape gardener in Northern California even though her well-meaning, bossy mother and her live-in boyfriend, Aaron, both think she could do better if she would only apply herself. Aaron, an IT guy who likes to camp and go hear music in local bars, is also skeptical when Carla becomes involved in the life of Viridian, a renowned poet she meets while taking care of the elderly woman's garden. "Why do you want to hang out with these people anyway?" he asks after they attend a party at Viridian's house with various chattering members of the literati (each one a sharp character study). "I'm not sure we've got a lot in common." But Carla had her world expanded when, on a whim, she attended a poetry reading featuring Viridian. "For the first time [I] really heard a poem," she says. And later: "It all ended up inside me." In her usual accomplished and sensitive fashion, Thompson invites us into the consciousness of a young woman tentatively entering a whole new world that may give her a clue to who she is meant to be, while at the same time fearing that the enticing, glamorous creatures who live there simply view her as a useful helpmeet. The plot is propelled by various people trying to persuade Viridian to make public the last poems of her lover Mathias, a poet even more famous than she by virtue of killing himself at 35, but the real story is Carla's gradual realization of what she wants and what she can be. The brilliantly rendered mise-en-scène of quarrelsome, ego-ridden, yet touchingly fragile poets and the literary entrepreneurs who circle around them makes a vivid backdrop for this classic coming-of-age tale. More thoughtful, elegantly written fiction in the classic realist tradition by the gifted Thompson. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A twentysomething Californian, Carla is as tough and sharp as the yucca she skillfully transplants even though, through no fault of her own, it's not what the now enraged customer ordered. She abruptly quits her job but continues to care for the plantings at the alluring home of a silver-haired poet of some renown known as Viridian. Carla--competent, blunt, quick to defend and extract herself, and frustrated by an unaddressed reading disability--is baffled by her intense response to Viridian's poetry and by Viridian's reeling her into a heady new world, as are Carla's down-to-earth boyfriend and her hospital administrator mother. Drafted to work on a literary magazine, then to help run a writers' conference in the woods, replete with snakes and poison oak, fragile egos and romantic fantasies, Carla becomes entangled in Viridian's secrets, familial and literary. Ever insightful, imaginative, compassionate, and funny, Thompson (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl, 2018) is a virtuoso of thorny interactions between wholly realized characters rife with contradictions. And she is so in her element, bringing this richly dimensional book-anchored mise-en-scène to life with lacerating wit and rueful tenderness while adeptly interleaving a poet's long, covert battle against sexism and regret with the verdant tale of a young woman taking root in an unexpectedly sustaining realm.

Thompson (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl) intriguingly explores the contours of the literary world through the eyes of an outsider. Carla Sawyer, a restless Northern California landscaper in her 20s, is stretched thin by conflicting advice. Her divorced mother urges her to either get a hospital job or grow legal marijuana, while her boyfriend remarks that her green thumb remains underappreciated. Carla's world broadens when she begins work in the gardens of renowned poet Viridian Boone. Carla doesn't know anything about poetry, but Viridian opens her home to the young woman, who winds up mingling with an eccentric coterie of poets, writers, and artists. As Carla grows closer to Viridian and the bohemian group, she develops a strong appreciation for poetry. Soon, Carla becomes caught up in conversations with Viridian about Viridian's former lover, Mathias, who died by suicide many years earlier, after he became famous for his love poems about Viridian. Thompson's talents for immersive storytelling and sharp characters are on brilliant display, particularly in her portrayal of Carla's longing for something greater, and of Viridian's conflicted feelings about Mathias's work. The author's fans will savor this. (July)