Tipton: A Novel
A sweeping coming-of-age story about love, friendship, and unavoidable heartbreak, set against the tumultuous backdrop of World War II
In the years leading up to World War II, life at the Tipton Home is tranquil. The children help run the farm that sustains them and obey Dale and Muriel Jenkins, the couple running this rural Oklahoma orphanage on a tight budget. But the arrival of a sensual and impulsive young housemother interrupts Tipton's gentle rhythms. Defying her Aunt Muriel and Uncle Dale, Alice WIlliams flirts with Ross Gentry and the other boys, meddles in orphanage business, and goes out drinking with fellow housemother Anna Boyer. All the while, Alice longs for her estranged husband, Macklin.
The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything. With Anna’s reluctant help, Alice travels across the country in search of Macklin, who stopped communicating with her long ago.
Nominated for the 2015 Virginia Literary Prize in fiction
“Friendship, the search for identity, coming of age, class, the effects of war, and the power of love … are rendered new by Holladay's imagining, and Tipton leaves us with its own hard-won truths.”
- David Daniel, author of Six Off 66