Fifteen years after completing his acclaimed GroVont trilogy, author Tim Sandlin takes us back to that fictional town in Wyoming  to see what happens next. After the rollercoaster ride that was  his journey through ‘Skipped Parts’, ‘Sorrow Floats’ and ‘Social Blunders’, Sandlin’s hapless hero Sam Callahan is now settled into life as a married man , father and manager of the Virgin Birth Home for Unwed Mothers. And as if he wasn’t already beleaguered by the women in his life – his wife, his ex-wife, his adult daughter, his hormonal teenaged wards - his eccentric mother Lydia arrives to stir things up. And  this isn't just an ordinary visit from grandma - Lydia is out on parole after a stint in prison, for attempting to assassinate the First Pooch.  

Before long, she has vandalized a grocery store and antagonized her parole officer, then promptly sets off  on a road trip with Sam’s foster son  and a crotchety ninety nine year old, with Sam in hot pursuit.   But danger lurks, as a menacing figure from the boy’s past appears to settle ancient scores . Of course, their paths will cross in the kind of finale that we have come to expect from Sandlin – equal parts slapstick and suspense,  chockfull of ‘laugh-out-loud’ness . Also unexpectedly tragic just when it is at its funniest.

‘Lydia’ , like its prequels  is wildly funny, bristling with kooky, unpredictable  characters and boisterously celebrating  that most American of all literary tropes – the dysfunctional family.  For in Sandlin’s GroVont, embarrassing relatives are practically a tradition.  But  the real surprise in this zany ensemble cast is Oly Pendersen , Lydia’s geriatric  fellow traveler who survives (or claims to have) a stunning array of disasters - earthquakes, exploding boilers, a World War, grizzly attacks, the odd case of clap, even a run-in with Picasso –  only to be confounded by heartbreak.  But rest assured, for ‘Lydia’  is also about closure and second chances and Sandlin, with characteristic wit and flourish, writes every one of his characters the endings he thinks they  deserve.