Come Again No More »

Jack Todd is the son of a horseman. He was born in Nebraska and grew up in Nebraska and Wyoming. He is the author of the memoir Desertion, which won the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, the Quebec Writer's Federation First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction. He now lives in Montreal.

From the award-winning author of the acclaimed Sun Going Down comes an intimate portrait of a marriage and a family struggling to survive turbulent times that echo our own.

THE PAINT FAMILY built an American empire on the legendary strength of their character, their wit, and their resolve, but the foreclosures, bank failures, and joblessness of the Great Depression may bring their world down around them. The family’s foundation is further weakened by a rift running through two generations, scarred over by stubbornness and pain. Come Again No More is a uniquely American story about a family navigating a changing world and the tough choices it presents.

The indomitable family patriarch, Eli, owns everything as far as the eye can see, but there is an emptiness in his heart. After a dramatic accident leaves him struggling for life, he must reckon with the decisions he made that separated him from the daughter he loved most. A chance for redemption presents itself in his granddaughter Emaline. Eli has faced his own mortality many times, but his pride seems to have a death grip on him.

Emaline marries Jake, a womanizing prizefighter who promises to help her realize her dream of making a life on a farm. But Jake’s inner demons and nature itself conspire against Emaline’s fierce determination to make their marriage work. Life sends Emaline many joys when she least expects them, but ultimately, she must make tough decisions about holding on and letting go.

Based on the author’s family letters and diaries, Come Again No More is a bittersweet novel, a moving and vivid portrayal of a family’s triumphs and tragedies paralleling the glories and shameful underbelly of a nation struggling through the Great Depression.

Publishers Weekly

The second installment of the Paint trilogy (after Sun Going Down) continues with this compelling, if meandering, tale of Depression-era life in the West. Four generations of the Paint family come into focus through events surrounding the funeral of Eli Paint's estranged granddaughter and the shotgun wedding of his young great-granddaughter, Emaline. First, Eli misses the funeral, then crashes his car upon returning to his Wyoming ranch. After the accident, however, Eli and Juanita, his housekeeper, declare their love. Meanwhile, Emaline's marriage to Jake, an aging prizefighter, isn't going well; after he loses all their money to grifters, she leaves him to live with Eli and Juanita. But when Jake's floozy ex-wife shows up with the six-year-old son Jake never knew he had, Emaline returns, adopting the boy as her own. Facing the loss of their farm, Jake and Emaline join the westward migration in the hope that Oregon will bring them better luck. Though it doesn't quite manage the sweeping grandeur it shoots for, the novel--based on Todd's family history--conveys the tenacity and distress of Americans caught in the vise of the Great Depression. (Sept.)