Sleeping with Random Beasts — Karin Goodwin

In this hilarious and touching gem of a first novel (discovered in a towering heap of unsolicited manuscripts -- yes, it happens!), Bean, otherwise known as twenty-nine-year-old Eleanor May Shank, is leaving Boston. A train trip across America stretches in front of her. Panting at her heels are too many years at a boring bank, three long years with a beer-swilling boyfriend, two years under able analysis, and an unfulfilled yearning to become a photographer. Traveling with a flask of whiskey and her camera, Bean visits old friends and family in one city after another -- Richmond, Chicago, Kansas City, Tucson, San Francisco, Portland -- facing her crazy past armed with a vicious wit and a penchant for one-nightstands. While trying to justify her aimlessness to her ex-Marine dad, loose and boozy divorced mom, and old friends who aren't what they used to be, she hurtles toward her own surprising fate. Laced with wry observations, this unrestrained, raucous debut is sharply insightful and impossible to put down.