This is the story of a family, literally torn apart, and trying to find what is left of them years later.
Hope Jones is a modern day Dorothy who is literally whisked away by a tornado in 1978 from her beloved town of Emylyn Springs, Nebraska.
The difference is this "Dorothy", Hope, never comes back home.
She leaves behind her husband and three children.
The story open as the children are grown and we find them called home for their father's funeral.
Their father, also like their mother Hope, is literally struck down by Mother Nature as a bolt of lightening kills him.
Raised by a busy father and their mother's friend Viney Cross, who also is their father's mistress all through the years, the grown children return to home to discover things about their mother and father they never knew.
Hope had kept a diary and through that, we learn that she had been diagnosed with MS prior to her tragic death.
She also suffered several miscarriages before having her children.
So the heart of the story then takes us to see how the children deal with returning to face each other and the realities of life in the small town.
Larken is a professor of history and she, as the oldest, tries to find the answer to what happened to her childhood through food.
Larken's being overweight is obviously the result of much deeper issues.
Gaelan, Hope's son, is a weatherman who has filled his life with women and trying to predict the unpredictable.
Finally, the youngest child, Bonnie, is an activist who spent her years staying in Emylyn Springs working at odd jobs while looking for clues about who her mother really was.
Their coming together has made them all face their tragic childhood and dissect it to see what an important part it played in shaping their lives.
Kallos makes the characters real and deep so that the reader cares deeply about each one.
Kallos's wonderful writing enriches the somewhat quirky overall plot.
I thoroughly enjoyed this very different but beautifully written novel.