Excerpt from Some Go Home by Odie Lindsey, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You remember what I was like, Dean?" she asked. "Before Derby and all?"

What came to Deana's mind was a movie scene. A western, or war story. A chick flick, only more. It had taken place four years earlier—or maybe now five—though the memory was crisp. She'd been at work, at the beauty parlor, staring through the plate-glass window, watching an unknown young woman stagger half drunk across the parking lot. The stranger was bloodied to a pulp; a coalition of combat boots, miniskirt, and split lip. Deana had watched her wobble through the glass doors, prop up against reception, and cast her one open eye around the room.

Everyone on hand had seen the battered car behind her, and knew that a collision, not some man, had delivered the blows. (This fact had kept things on the savory side of gawk.) A movie. A tragedy. A rock opera. A crime. Nobody in the beauty parlor had known how to react to this . . . this woman, clearly whipped, but who seemed brimful of fight. And lost love, somehow. Even at first sight. Lost love.

Deana smiled. "Unfortunately, yes. I remember."

"I'm serious," Colleen said. "I was going somewhere then, you know? I felt like I was still going."

Deana wrangled loose from the embrace, and slung her purse over her shoulder. "You were, but in the wrong direction! Getting in your own way, ever' which way."

"Well, I guess you should've let me alone, huh?"

"Probably. And yet . . . here we are."

"Do you realize that I'm 'bout to spend the rest of my life in the same zip code I grew up in?" Colleen asked.

Deana grasped her friend's shoulder, smiled. "This's just hormones. Birth jitters. Believe me, I've been there. Twice."

"But—"

"You'll climb out of this hole, like you always do. Always have." Deana held out an open hand. "Now gimme those cigarettes. I don't know who's selling 'em to you, and I won't tell you not to have one or two. But come on, Colleen. Oh, and the lighter, too. Give it up. Now."

Excerpted from Some Go Home: A Novel. Copyright (c) 2020 by Odie Lindsey. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.