EVERY WRITER KNOWS YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN. But that's just what is required of West Texas expatriate Dee Bennett-Kaufmann when her mother is badly injured in a mysterious car accident. Single-again "Dr. Dee" has never been on the "A-team" in her trendy East Coast MFA program. When a prestigious summer fellowship gives her the chance to finally finish her book, salvage her career, and spend some quality time with her college-age daughter - Dee's certain her luck is about to change. Returning to care for her irascible, widowed mother threatens all of that. With so much at stake, Dee engineers a series of unorthodox strategies and creative tradeoffs to keep her options in play-and despite herself finds friendship, love, and the power of words in the unlikeliest of places.