Newly widowed and unemployed, a woman in her mid-fifties sets off on a journey of trespassing and adventure through the American West and beyond in Three Keys, aย witty, thought-provoking novel from the PEN USA Awardโwinning writer.
โFilled with award-winner Pritchettโs electric prose and love of the natural world, Three Keys is irresistible.โโCaroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Days of Wonder1
Becoming invisible is painful . . . unless you know how to work it.
Ammalie Brinks has just lost the three keys of her lifeโs purposeโher husband, her job, and her role as a mom, after her son went off to college. Sheโs also mystified to find herself in middle age: How exactly had that happened? The terrifying idea of becoming irrelevant, invisible, of letting her life slip away Into obscurity, has her driving distracted through Nebraska with a broken plastic fork in her tangled hair.
But what Ammalie has found are three literal keys, saved in a drawer for years, from her and her husbandโs past. They are the keys to homes that she hopes will be emptyโand plans on spending time in. Embarking on an international and increasingly complicated journey (criminal behavior turns out to be challenging!), she seeks to find a life truly her own. And that middle-age business?ย As someone breaking the law, Ammalie finds there's a real benefit to being invisible when youโre working on becoming the striking, bold, and very much manifested self you want to be.
Laura Pritchett, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Colorado Book Award, offers a delightful exploration of the very serious business of living a full and honest life. Filled with love, heartbreak, and misdemeanors, Three Keys tackles the unavoidable sorrows and joys experienced during a second coming of age with the zest and vigor that it deserves.