Returns and Exchanges - by Kayla Rae Whitaker (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A sweeping novel of one Southern family's rise and fall throughout the 1980s-a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the promise and limitations of the American Dream, from the acclaimed author of The Animators It's December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor's, and Fran (nâee 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"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

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

"This is the novel I've been missing: a sprawling, emotional, and true family saga. I fell completely in love with the characters, the story, the setting. All of it. It's damn near perfect."--Ayelet Waldman, author of Love & Treasure

It's December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor's discount department store, 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 successful chain of family-owned 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 the slicked-back high society crowd of Lexington, Kentucky, are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Josiah, the oldest son, 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 had. 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.

Review Quotes

"This is the novel I've been missing: a sprawling, emotional and true family saga. I picked it up knowing nothing about it and fell completely in love with the characters, the story, the setting. All of it. It's damn near perfect."--Ayelet Waldman, New York Times bestselling author of Love & Treasure

"Wildly ambitious and deeply satisfying, Returns and Exchanges is a new kind of great American novel. Kayla Rae Whitaker deftly animates the ambitions and desires of a family on the rise, painting each character with a hard-eyed compassion that makes it impossible not to root for all of them, even as they break each other's hearts again and again. This novel is smart, funny, loving, and utterly beautiful. I didn't want it to end."--Erin O. White, author of Like Family

"Whitaker has written a sprawling, extravagantly intelligent novel about people quietly breaking free from constraints--marital, gender, class. . . . Superb. Like a blue-collar Franzen novel."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Whitaker expertly juggles the expansive cast of characters and elicits sympathy for all of them even when they exhibit the worst parts of themselves. [Returns and Exchanges] is an openhearted epic of the American dream and the bargains struck to achieve it."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This singular story is timely and telling, distinctive and resonant, familiar and grand. It's no small thing to craft a family saga that somehow feels new and ageless all at once, but Whitaker manages it with verve and grace."--Laurie Frankel, author of This Is How It Always Is

"Whitaker is one of contemporary fiction's most astute, empathetic chroniclers of all the messy complexities that make us human. With a heart so strong you can hear it beat on the page, Returns and Exchanges deftly explores the price of ambition as one family grapples with the weight of its own success."--Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding

"In Returns and Exchanges, the Baker-Taylors discover what it truly takes to build and preserve a legacy--not just in business, but in love. A tender, funny, and sharply observed story about the complicated promise of the American Dream and how to hold a family together."--Heather Aimee O'Neill, author of The Irish Goodbye

"Ambitious and engrossing, a weekend read, written with sympathy, insight, humor, and style."--Susan Rieger, author of Like Mother, Like Mother

"With engaging characters and immersive prose, Whitaker shows readers both an intimate family portrait and a lesson in the perils of greed, and by the book's thoughtful, softly bittersweet ending, a commentary on humanity's determination to make beauty despite society's rejection of it."--Booklist, starred review

"Deeply compelling . . . Hand to readers who have an interest in family stories, strong women, and lesbian and gay fiction."--Library Journal, starred review

About the Author

Kayla Rae Whitaker is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and New York University. Her first novel, The Animators, was named a best book of the year by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and BookPage. She lives in Queens, New York.