A Kentucky family gathers for their first Fourth of July after the death of their mother, expecting comfort in old traditions and familiar routines. Instead, the evening is upended when their seventy-year-old father arrives with a glamorous fiancée thirty years younger than him. What begins as an awkward family cookout slowly unravels into something deeper: old resentments rise to the surface, buried secrets emerge, grief reshapes relationships, and every member of the family is forced to confront what happens when the person who held everyone together is suddenly gone. Told over five gatherings across the span of a year, A Place at the Table is a comedy-drama about inheritance, loneliness, faith, memories, and the fragile rituals families use to survive change. Set in Appalachia and filled with sharply drawn characters, humor, and emotional honesty, the novel captures the uncomfortable, funny, heartbreaking ways families reinvent themselves after loss.
