A highly engaging story of a single mother's struggle to provide for herself and her daughter, set in Upper Michigan. ( )

Tin Camp Road by Ellen Airgood is a very highly recommended literary domestic drama. This excellent, engaging, and genuine novel will hold your attention and heart from start to finish.

Laurel Hill and her intelligent, exuberant ten-year old daughter Skye have always been a team and managed to have a rich life even while living in poverty. The Hills have lived in the small town of Gallion on Lake Superior for four generations, so Laurel is determined to raise her daughter there while working several odd jobs. Her wandering mother lost the family home so Laurel and Skye are now living in a dilapidated rental house where the water and heat are frequently off and not fixed by their landlord. After losing their babysitter, Laurel now needs to leave Skye alone while she works. When their landlord tells them they have to be out in December because he wants to fix the house up as a short term rental for tourists, Laurel tries to find another option but can't. She ends up moving them out to the woods into an old trailer in the woods and Skye has to switch to a new school district.

Laurel fiercely loves Skye. She keeps an optimistic attitude and approach to parenting her daughter even while she realizes all the things she can't do. Her life is devoted to taking care of her daughter and she is determined to do it all herself. While I understand her tenacity and reticence, it is heartbreaking when Laurel doesn't ask for help from the people around her - people who care and would help. Heartbreaking events that follow their move out to the trailer result in some profound character growth and development. Laurel faces some facts, makes some hard choices, and learns a few important lessons along the way. Both Laurel and Skye are wonderful characters, as is the whole cast of supporting characters, the town of Gallion, and the area itself.

Tin Camp Road is a beautifully written and a realistic, genuine novel that will resonate with readers who appreciate literary fiction. Once I started reading this novel I was immersed in the plot and lost all track of time. The plot moves forward at an even pace until a shocking event that changes Laurel's outlook at life and makes her reexamine everything she believed was the best course of action. This is a realistic novel and the people, struggles, and weather are all described and depicted exactly as would be expected. The contrast between wealthy residents and their cluelessness of the poverty Laurel is experiencing is authentic. Laurel's determination to work any job and not feel sorry for herself is truly an admirable trait, which makes her growth in understanding that asking for help when you truly need it is not giving up an even stronger event. This would be an excellent choice for a book club.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2021/08/tin-camp-road.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4186006698 ( )

Set in a gorgeous location, rural upper Peninsula, Michigan, bordering Lake Superior. Laurel and her ten year old daughter Skye, weather poverty, struggling to move forward in a life that has few monetary resources. Their closeness and mother daughter relationship is, though not without challenges, is one that is amazing. Sees them through many difficulties, but Laurel feels the pressure to do more for her daughter. When a devastating and unexpected occurence is thrown at them, Laurel finds herself doubting their life and doesn't know where or whom to turn. Changes are ahead but will they be good ones?

Beautiful descriptions of scenery in different seasons, one of the high points of the book. I love this area, which is what drew me to this book. Also loved the characters, the different ways people find to survive, live life. This book also highlights the struggles of a single mom and though wanting only the best for her daughter, poverty is difficult to overcome without a helping hand or two. A book of love, though of course one needs to cope with life itself, which is often not easy.

ARC from Edelweiss. ( )

If "ANNIE" thought she had a hard-knock life, then she never met Laurel Hill, the thirty year-old protagonist of Ellen Airgood's latest novel, TIN CAMP ROAD. A single mother who cleans rooms at a motel to provide for herself and precociously talented ten year-old daughter, Skye, Hill suddenly finds herself homeless with no backup plan. Like Airgood's first novel, SOUTH OF SUPERIOR, the story is set on and near the shore of that Great Lake, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Airgood, who runs a diner in Grand Marais, knows the territory and, more importantly, knows the people of that hardscrabble area, and the wide divide between the haves and have-nots, i.e. the moneyed tourists and summer people and the native population who serve and clean up after them. With her daughter out of town with friends, Laurel spends several days living in her car with her dog, before moving into an abandoned trailer in the woods. Things get better briefly, then worse, when Social Services takes her daughter. But I don't want to spoil the story. Bottom line: TIN CAMP ROAD is the most moving and affecting portrayal of the plight of the working poor that I've read in a long time. And the same goes for the mother-daughter bond so central to the story. Strong, utterly human characters and an equally strong sense of place. I loved the book, and I suspect women readers will love it even more. Very, very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )