Creatures Here Below: A Novel

Gail Neighbors is a single mother in Indiana raising two sons with very different trajectories. Tyler, the youngest, is a high achiever who sings in the church choir and maintains a strong relationship with his present father. Mason, the oldest, struggles with the absence of his father, who abandoned the family long ago, and this haunts him deeply. To support her family, Gail rents out two rooms in her home. Her tenants are Annie, an elderly woman experiencing cognitive decline, and Jackie, a twenty-year-old single mother navigating early parenthood. Together, these five people form a makeshift family unit. When Mason runs away to search for his father with hopes of confronting him, the stability of this improvised household is threatened. The novel explores the bonds holding this group together as they face the possibility of being driven apart, examining themes of growing up, parenthood, young adulthood, and the responsibilities people have to one another.