Loneliness, homelessness, music, and friends (Upstate New York, and towns south to Florida; 1994-1997): Two quotes by beloved women sum up the complex, interconnected themes Allison Larkin delves into in her heart-hitting fourth contemporary novel, The People We Keep: Mother Theresa’s “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved”; and Maya Angelou’s “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”

In the Biography of Loneliness by Britain’s Dr. Fay Bound Alberti, who studies the history of Matters of the Heart, she describes the psychological aspects of loneliness as an “emotional cluster” with “pinch points.” When we meet Larkin’s sixteen-year-old protagonist, April Sawicki, she’s at her tipping point. A last straw, breaking point from deep-rooted psychological pain and loneliness symbolized by living in a trailer park in a motorhome without a motor. More profoundly, abandoned by her mother at six, and her emotionally absent father who’s spent the last months living with another woman and her sickly child. All this happened in a small, remote upstate NY town in the Adirondack Mountains, west of the Fingers Lakes region.

There’s not much sweet going on in April’s life. No wonder she’s flunking high school. Given the alarming rise in teenage loneliness, and society in general, the novel also hits at an urgent time. The range of raw emotions exposed are universally-relatable, making this heartfelt tale for young and old.

We root for April because Larkin’s writing style cuts to the chase poignantly, making us feel her pain. It’s as if the author has embraced Ernest Hemingway’s advice to “write the best story you can and write it as straight as you can.” Larkin’s prose stands out for its straightforward way of conveying weighty emotions. She makes it look easy, but as Winston Churchill wrote, “if I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” Writing simpler to get your message across powerfully is hard. 

Noteworthy too is the ‘90s timeframe, ending when April is nineteen, when social media launched. Larkin is exploring loneliness before social media became a factor in the loneliness phenomenon, when teenagers, and too many of us, have lost the quality of interacting in person. April didn’t have any girlfriends to begin with. Small towns are gossipy, so her classmates didn’t want to be friends with her knowing how neglected she was and looked.

April’s most existentially valuable possession was her guitar, once her father’s. One day in a rage he smashed it into pieces – the final straw – setting into motion the novel’s searching-for-a-home journey: her coming-of-age, relationship journey (Parts I and II) and her musical, road-tripping one in Part II.

Fleeing meant literally becoming homeless and doing things she knew were wrong (like stealing her father’s getaway car and his cash lying around), feeling she had no other choice. Hers is a hard-knocks tale to no fault of her own.

Music is the one thing April can count on. She writes and sings melancholy songs, and plays and listens to oldies. The “sweetest song” she knows is Something in the Way She Moves. April loves this song because it makes her feel “people can fall in love and stay there.” In honor of April and one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, let James Taylor’s soothing voice give you a sense of her longing: 

April’s playlist also includes Shelter from the Storm and Buckets of Rain (Bob Dylan), and Can’t Make You Love Me (Bonnie Raitt) – songs that reveal her sad story. Yet music offers hope.

April leaves behind a boyfriend who says he wants to marry her, but she believes that’s to get her to have sex. “Sex is one thing – just putting parts together. It’s an entirely different thing to exist together.” Existing together, meaning “what would last and wear too thin to keep.”

Leaving also means leaving Margo. She owns a diner where April’s been working since eleven. Margo loves and worries about her to the “core” – the child she never had, knowing just how much love she can handle. Margo used to date her father years ago, so she understands how messed up he is. Margo is the mother-figure April lost.

On the highway, April is headed to nowhere in particular. On the road for three hours, she spots the sign for Ithaca, exits remembering Margo’s boyfriend didn’t like the town peopled with hippies, a reason she might. Larkin went to Ithaca College, turning to other writing advice to write what you know.

Describing Ithaca in a “valley with a school on both the bordering hills,” refers to Ithaca College on one side, Cornell University another. Arriving, she does what other homeless people do if they even have a car: live in it. In her case, at a deserted campground until the creepy owner closes it down for the winter.

Waitressing is a transferable skill allowing April to quickly find a job, especially in a college town with a lively coffee shop scene. At Café Decadence, yes there’s hippies but also “grungy” and “straight-laced” types. Her funky boss with “extra spiky” hair, Carly, gives her a live-saving chance, earning it by coming to the rescue of a cute yet bumbling artist cook. On one of the lines that que up every morning, a twenty-seven-year-old guy, Adam, an architect and professor at Ithaca College, takes an unusual interest in her, pleasing and frightening her not trusting his motives. Until he tells her he too was once homeless and knows what it feels like not to be “noticed.” The push-and-pull tug of their relationship is a pattern seen throughout. Exceptionally kind to a girl desperately craving being touched and noticed, yet equally afraid of the danger of relaxing her guard.

April picks up a guitar again in Part II, when her music aspirations become real. Driving up and down the East Coast stopping in Florida and towns in-between, telling herself “driving will fix things. Changing directions. Gaining distance, getting to the kind of numb where miles fill in for feelings,” she finds work playing at bars mostly, hearing her “favorite sounds”: “the click of the strap buckle against the guitar, pop of the mic as I switch it on, the way the strings of the guitar vibrate ever so slightly when I rest it on my leg.” Crowds respond to the soulful songs she’s written, but to get them to first pay attention she sizes up the audience and plays songs they know, offering them and readers nostalgia. Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again seizes this stage in her life.

April’s musical path may bring some of her dreams closer, but she’s still squatting in stranger’s homes and having one-night stands, making friends and leaving them. When she lands in Asheville, North Carolina, she picks up Ithaca-like vibes so decides not to run away so fast. Here she’s tested mightily.

Will she stay or flee?

Lorraine