Out of the Woods

The novel’s narrator and one of its protagonists, Sarah is in her early thirties when the novel begins. Flashback sequences reveal that she began dating Caleb in high school and married him at 19 years old. Sarah was especially close to her mother Marcie, her aunt June (Marcie’s best friend), and June’s daughter, Win. Sarah was raised in a shared household with all three after June and Marcie decided to raise their daughters together when both became unexpectedly pregnant as teenagers.

Sarah’s narrative at the beginning of the novel is filled with the tension between feeling that, with Caleb, she “got lucky earlier than most” (44), and feeling stifled by the way their relationship has developed over the years. This tension is complicated by her continued grief over her mother’s death, which manifests in the feeling that Sarah needs to achieve fame to honor her mother, who had her own hopes of being a writer until life as a single mother changed her aspirations. Over the course of the novel, Sarah learns The Power of Letting Go of Grief, which allows her to move forward and build a new life as a writer that is based on passion for her art rather than guilt.