Ammalie has no idea she is adorable. Whether she is combing her hair with a fork on a Nebraska freeway, rearranging her homemade first aid kits on a borrowed living room floor, or sending cryptic postcards, she is not aware of her charms. Her readers are though, from the start, and they are cheering her on.
Ammalie is on the run, but not from the law. Not at first, anyway. She is on the run from her past self, from what she considers her mistakes, from a trifecta of sad circumstances that have engulfed her in her middle age. She is tired of being invisible by default, so she becomes aggressively invisible. And this takes her on a unique journey.
First we travel with Ammalie to a remote cabin in Colorado. There, she finally takes a breath–despite her worries that she will be discovered and apprehended. As she stretches and breathes, she begins to find the essence of herself, an essence that had been all but lost within decades of service to family and convention. Ammalie begins to wonder: How can I help others? How can I help the earth? How can I help myself?
Ammalie likes to name things. Her car, her sleeping bag, and her cooking stove are all characters in her adventure. They travel with her from Colorado to the next chapter of her self-discovery, the high desert of Arizona. Here, more adventures and more danger greet her. A stray herself, she’s picked up a companion, a rescue pup she names Lady Shackleton.
Author Laura Pritchett, in this her seventh work of fiction, balances the literal with the metaphorical with grace. In Three Keys, they function simultaneously and seemingly without effort. The themes of explorers and exploring, of invisibility and visibility, of sustainability and global ruin–these all accompany us through a delightful and even breezy read. And then, of course, there are the keys.
There are many keys, more than the three in the book’s title. There are keys to survival and understanding. Keys to forgiveness and righteousness. Keys to healthy sexuality and self-understanding. The last of the three keys takes Ammalie across the world to New Zealand and her most risky adventure. As one adventure ends, another begins. Ammalie, now visible and whole, turns toward the future to see how she can make the world better. We are sad to see her leave us, but yet she really doesn’t. We are with her on her new journey. Now, it’s our journey too.
Three Keys hits the bookstores on July 17.
