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A Novel
by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Book Reviewed by:A sweeping novel of one Kentucky family's rise and fall throughout the 1980s—a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the perils of mixing family with business, from the acclaimed author of The Animators.
It's December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor's, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store, while last-minute shoppers in the toy aisle are fighting over the lone remaining Atari. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones' chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches.
With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream—rags to riches—with a family-owned chain of successful discount department stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.
Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes he will go to in order to fit in with Lexington, Kentucky's slicked-back high society crowd are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Oldest son Josiah wants nothing to do with the family business, Sam is seeing things that might not really be there, and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers did. Meanwhile, Fran, her family's stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker-Taylor's, risking everything along the way. While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran learn that in matters of love and money, once it's gone, it's gone—no returns, no exchanges.
1.
Winter 1979–Fall 1981
It was December 24, your routine parade of customer service snarls: the woman who tried to return the Connect 4 set that had clearly been cracked by a human foot (It was like that when I took it out of the box). The two teenage girls in identical flares who'd attempted to shoplift mascara—teenage girls were legion: if you let one lift, they'd all lift—and began to cry when Gerald from security stepped in. By the time Fran arrived at the toy aisle to see a man and a woman wrestling over the store's sole remaining Atari VCS, their big seller that year, she'd been smiling for so long that her cheeks felt like meat.
After the standard Alright, folks, who had it first? then the ensuing He took it out of my cart and Oh bull and Sir, if you keep that up we won't sell it to you and I ain't never shoppin here again y'all got too expensive anyway, Fran had to call Gerald away from the comfort of the security nest and his Penthouse Forum—again—...
Married couple Fred and Fran Taylor have poured their lives into building up their regional discount store chain, Baker-Taylor's, and they're finally starting to see success. The chance to acquire another chain seems like the perfect opportunity to firmly launch them into the realm of the wealthy. But success comes with its own complications. As the company becomes more prosperous, cracks begin to form in the couple's marriage—and their relationships with their four children. This expansive novel is about a family undergoing constant change: rising and falling wealth, mental health crises, and marital tensions. Though they are, at times, cruel to one another, the Taylors remain connected. The complexity of the relationships feels realistic. Readers will enjoy following the deeply imperfect Taylor clan through all the messiness of life...continued
Full Review
(682 words)
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(Reviewed by Jillian Bell).
Family businesses provide fruitful ground for writers. The interpersonal dynamics at play are uniquely high-stakes, and there's a lot of room for things to go fascinatingly wrong. Returns and Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker focuses on a family that owns a chain of discount stores. Here are five other books that use fact and fiction to explore what happens when family and business mix:
One & Only by Maurene Goo
For centuries, the women of the Park family have made their living by peering into people's past lives and finding their soulmate. But at nearly 40, daughter Cassia has yet to find her own fated love. When an unexpected man enters the picture, she's led down a path that will reveal family secrets.
Sunshine ...
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