For readers of J. Ryan Stradal and The Music of Bees (with a dash of FX’s The Bear) comes a quirky and refreshing epistolary novel about a family of culture-shocked Brooklynites transplanted to Goodnight, Kansas and their fight for their unexpected lifeline: the legendary May Day Diner.
Welcome to Goodnight, Kansas.
Population: Many Kansans, three New Yorkers, and one chance to save the place they love most
With more wind chimes than residents, folks don't move to Goodnight when their lives are going well. That's why all eyes are on chef Sid Solvang and his family from the moment they turn down Emporia Road to the dilapidated Victorian they inherited.
While Sid searches for work and a way back to Brooklyn, his daughter searches for answers to the cryptic messages her grandfather left behind to save both her family and the town. But then Sid makes an impulsive purchase: the fledgling May Day Diner, an iconic eatery under the threat of the wrecking ball.
As the Solvangs search for their ticket out, they discover the truth of Goodnight: one of heart and tradition, of exploitation and greed, and neighbors you would do anything to save. And the Solvangs must navigate all of it—plus a wayward girl named Disco, a host of rambunctious alpacas, and the corrupt factory sustaining the town—in order to find their way back home...wherever that may be.
Told through diary entries, emails, school notes, and an anonymous town paper of the Lady Whistledown variety, A Town with Half the Lights On is a tender testament to the notions that home isn’t just the place you live, family isn’t just your relatives, and it’s almost never easy to find the courage to do what’s right.