THE LAST ROAD TRIP

In 2019, physician Lisa Callihan is nervous as her husband answers their ringing landline. Thankfully, it’s not the reporter who recently left a voicemail on her cell asking about the 1999 car crash in Texas that killed driver Parker Harrison, whose older brother Tripp is now intending to run for the U.S. Senate; Lisa had secretly “signed away her integrity” regarding that event. The call is, however, a different trigger stirring up the past: It’s from recent divorcée Mary Blake, inviting Lisa to join her and her fellow former college sorority sisters Helen, Annesley, and Charlie to complete their Virginia-to-California road trip that halted abruptly—in Texas, in 1999. Chapters of the book then alternate between 2019 and 1999 and the third-person viewpoints of each woman. Various past and present issues are conveyed (including problematic parents, a suppressed college rape, and a recent recurrence of cancer) amidst the unspooling of the series of events on the 1999 trip that led to the rupture in Texas. By the novel’s end, the “do-over” trip has brought forth renewed bonds and several disclosures, although Lisa still remains silent about the motivations that fueled her long-ago choice. Klepper deploys admirable and engaging craft in this weaving together of five women’s backstories, their assorted interpersonal dynamics, and the two time periods. While readers will naturally root for or relate to some of the women more than others, the author effectively depicts the coming-of-age and adult concerns of each to make all past and present actions understandable. Her final full recounting of what happened that deadly night in Texas is particularly masterful, offering suspense as readers brace for the established upcoming crash, and surprises as Klepper reveals why Lisa will continue to keep some elements of the story to herself.