The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is a writer and journalist.  She was born in Phoenix, Arizona.  She graduated with honors from Barnard College, the women's college affiliated with Columbia University.  She published a bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005, which is being made into a film by Paramount.

She wrote this book because she wanted to talk about what happens with children when the parent abdicates responsibility.

It is a story of two girls, set in 1970 in a small town in California.  'Bean' Holladay is twelve, and her sister Liz is fifteen, when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself.  She leaves the girls enough money to last a month or two.  In her absence, they decide to take a bus to Virginia, where their uncle Tinsley lives in a rundown mansion that has been in Charlotte's family for generations.  Not wanting to be a burden on their uncle, and because money is tight, Bean and Liz start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, the foreman of the mill in town, a man who bullies everyone around him.  When something happens to Liz when she is in a car with Maddox, they find themselves in the midst of turmoil that they may not be able to survive.

This is a quite captivating read, with characters that just jump off the page and manage to grab your heart at the same time.