This Must Be the Place A Novel [Paperback]

A sudden death, a never-mailed postcard, and a longburied secret set the stage for a luminous and heartbreakingly real novel about lost souls finding one another

The Darby-Jones boardinghouse in Ruby Falls, New York, is home to Mona Jones and her daughter, Oneida, two loners and self-declared outcasts who have formed a perfectly insular family unit: the two of them and the three eclectic boarders living in their house. But their small, quiet life is upended when Arthur Rook shows up in the middle of a nervous breakdown, devastated by the death of his wife, carrying a pink shoe box containing all his wife's mementos and keepsakes, and holding a postcard from sixteen years ago, addressed to Mona but never sent. Slowly the contents of the box begin to fit together to tell a storyone of a powerful friendship, a lost love, and a secret that, if revealed, could change everything that Mona, Oneida, and Arthur know to be true. Or maybe the stories the box tells and the truths it brings to life will teach everyone about lovehow deeply it runs, how strong it makes us, and how even when all seems lost, how tightly it brings us together.

With emotional accuracy and great energy, Kate Racculia'sThis Must Be the Placeintroduces memorable, charming characters that refuse to be forgotten.

Questions for Discussion

1. Very early on, Max Morris says to Arthur that, sometimes you let the people you love believe what they want to believe. Do you think that's true? How does that statement play in to the rest of the novel?

2. What role does food play in the novel? Mona bakes cakes for a living, and also feeds her tenants each night - it's pointed out several times that both Mona's meals and cakes are especiallylq