Jesse Lee Kercheval opens her story in Cocoa, Florida, in 1966 as a precocious ten-year-old whose family-father, mother, two little girls-is trying to ride the Space Race's tide of optimism. But even as the rockets keep going up, the Kercheval family slowly spirals down.
Kercheval recalls her life as a young girl living in Cocoa, Florida, in 1966, watching as her mother slipped into a Valium-induced state of apathy, her father became a workaholic, and her older sister tried to shoulder the burden.
