''''Wait. Patient. Now. Not long. Good girl. Wait here. Brave girl. Back in a jiffy. Think of it as a vacation.''''
Big Bend, population 500. South Dakota, 1988. Eight-year-old Tiny Mite lives in a ramshackle farmhouse next to her grandfather’s crashed airplane and the pine tree where she trains as a spy. Goddamn is her favourite word. Taking pictures with a homemade camera is her new big thing. She lives with Bee, her apocalypse-obsessed grandmother and Luvie, her hard-drinking great-aunt. And then there’s her mother, Velvet – beautiful, heartbroken, desperate, impulsive. One night, Tiny Mite goes to the basement and hears a cry, but it’s not what she imagines and nothing will ever be the same.
Six years later, Clea won’t let anyone call her Tiny Mite anymore. Luvie is sober and Bee’s health is failing. Velvet has been gone for years, and nobody except Bee will even mention her name. Alone, angry and dressed in her grandfather’s old hunting clothes, Clea mopes through ditches and fields taking photographs until she hatches a plan with another loner, a boy with an unspeakable past.
This is a story of mothers and daughters. Of people tied by blood and home. Of moments captured and lifetimes lost. And of things never quite turning out as expected.
''''Not The Only Sky is not only beautifully and poignantly written, but also provides fascinating insights into life in rural America. Alyssa Warren captures perfectly the profound vulnerability of her characters, particularly that of Tiny Mite and her mother Velvet. Tiny Mite’s voice is highly original, as she gives meaning to a life and childhood experiences that might otherwise be impossible to make sense of.''''
– JULIET CONLIN, author of The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days
