Improbable Solution

by Judith B. Glad

Welcome to Whiterock, Oregon, where peculiar happenings are taken for granted. Whiterock is where Sally Carruthers is stuck, nursing a dying father. She used to have a career and a bright future. Now all she has is an old house and a mending and alterations business that barely brings in pocket change. Whiterock is where Gus Loring seeks forgetfulness. To find it, he'd have to do the impossible and forgive himself. Once he was a successful engineer, on the fast track to fame and fortune. Now he delivers laundry to dreary towns, until it's time for him to run again. Whiterock is where people are from, because there's nothing left to hold them there. Every year more of the stores on Main Street close, and every year more of its young people leave, to find their fortunes somewhere else. Yet somehow it endures. So perhaps there's something more to Whiterock than dusty streets, shabby buildings, and discouraged residents, because everything changes when Gus and Sally find each other. The future once again holds hope and promise. Or does it?

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE:
Among her varied careers are a couple Judith B. Glad actually chose, rather than falling into. With her children in school, she decided it was time for her to follow her own dreams, so she went back to school and studied botany. After completing her M.S., she became a botanical consultant, and spent the next twenty-odd years picking flowers for a living. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but she picked enough flowers to keep her happy.

Consulting is not always steady work, so one slow winter Judith decided to spend a little time at her second career choice. Now she'd done a lot of writing as a consultant, but somehow describing proposed mine sites and interpreting statistical data wasn't the kind of writing she wanted to do. So she wrote a book. And another, and... Before she knew it, she was spending more time writing than picking flowers.

Judith lives in Portland, Oregon, where her garden blooms all year 'round and the long, rainy winters give her lots of time for writing.

Reviews

[Kate Martyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gus Loring, running from a guilty past. Sally Carruthers, confused and exhausted from the exigencies of nursing a father afflicted with senile dementia and inexorably dying by degrees – just as she sees her career doing while she cares for him. When the pair are thrown together by circumstance in Whiterock, Oregon, neither wants the connection but still the peculiar magnetism is there.
How they negotiate the delicate path through their difficulties and doubts towards a workable solution makes the story eminently and sometimes heart-rendingly compelling. I was especially intrigued by the suggestion that the town is much more than the passive setting for the drama as it plays out. But hey, maybe it is just the struggle towards forgiveness, hope and love in themselves that changes Sally and Gus’s perception of the world around them.
This quirky book gained and held my interest to the end. Gus and Sally are real people, the small town atmosphere felt real, and the author has made all the secondary characters natural and authentic. There is wisdom, experience, sorrow and humour aplenty. I was rooting for Gus and Sally, willing them to make it work for them, but life isn’t always happy endings. Their doubts kept me turning the pages right to the end. A great read.

[Linda Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story begins with a spark--literally. Guy meets girl, something that probably happens every minute of every day. Sally is a caregiver, caught in a tender trap of love, loyalty, and responsibility while she watches over her demented dad. Gus drives a delivery truck even though he has college degrees that could earn him some big bucks. Clearly there is more to both than meets the eye. Their parallel journeys to self-discovery and emotional healing make for an intriguing read. Quirky secondary characters add touches of humor and pathos. And cradling them all is Whiterock, the old mining town in which they live. Whiterock is as big a character in this book as anyone else. And the sway it holds over its inhabitants is as fascinating as it is eerie. Ms. Glad has written a moving story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.