Stay Gone Days

by Steve Yarbrough

After a childhood in Mississippi marred by a horrific family scandal, teenage sisters Ella and Caroline Cole escape their hometown, losing all connection to each other. While Ella finds stable domesticity in Boston, Caroline travels the world, from California to Poland, fleeing regrets and a man intent on violence. Despite the decades apart, each sister is never far from the other’s thoughts. Then, one day, Ella walks into a bookstore and sees a novel called Stay Gone Days. Will this novel, a heartbreaking tale of estranged sisters, help Ella and Caroline find each other and start down the hard road of reconciliation and forgiveness?

Genres: Fiction, Southern

380 pages, Paperback

Published April 19, 2022

About the author

Born in Indianola, Mississippi, he received his B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Mississippi and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas. Writing largely within the Southern tradition, he draws his themes and characters from Southern history and mores in ways that have been compared to Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, and Willie Morris.

Yarbrough's major works include the novels The End of California (2006), Prisoners of War (2004), Visible Spirits (2001) and The Oxygen Man (1999), as well as short story collections such as Family Men (1990), Mississippi History (1994) and Veneer (1998). His latest novel, Safe from the Neighbors, was published by Knopf in 2010.

His honors include the Mississippi Authors Award, the California Book Award, and an award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. His novel, Prisoners of War, was a finalist for the 2005 PEN/Faulkner award. His work has been translated into Dutch, Japanese and Polish and published in the United Kingdom.

A professor of creative writing for many years at California State University, Fresno, Yarbrough recently joined the faculty in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston.

He is married to the Polish literary translator Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough and they have two daughters, Tosha and Lena. He lives in Stoneham, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Canadian Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those quiet stories that creeps up on you and imbeds itself into your thoughts well past putting the book down.

The dynamics of relationships within families and with others.
Sisters estranged after a family is torn apart when a scandalous secret is unleashed.
The lives of two sisters who think of each other often but go on with their lives separately. Not trusting each other and unsure of the toxicity they may bring. While one struggles, the other lives with ease until the roles become reversed.

It was easy to get lost in these separate lives. The writing so vivid. The depth of characters so real. The stories so intimate. It came a little too close to my own broken relationship with my sister.
4.5 ⭐️

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was the title that caught my eye and drew me to looking at what this novel was about since I had not read this author before. The description of a sister saga also was appealing, even though I had recently read another novel about two sisters . I found the story fascinating, not just because their experiences growing up in a Mississippi town were so very different from mine, so very traumatic, but because their relationship was so very different from my relationship with my two sisters. We of course had our moments over the years, but we have never been estranged as Ella and Caroline Cole were for decades and I can’t imagine that would ever happen with us, but Yarborough helps you imagine what it might be like .

So many lies so no one around them knows what their life growing up was really like . That’s how these two estranged sisters live . Making decisions that aren’t always the wisest, making mistakes that make for more lies. When they stop lying , their lives seem to settle, but yet they remain estranged and still have not come to terms with their past. The narrative seamlessly alternates between them, an illustration of the terrific writing, as is the movement between places - Mississippi, Boston, California, Poland and times in their lives as they remember the past. These are intimate and honest viewpoints of these women about themselves and mostly about each other. Yarborough gets inside the heads and hearts of these women, and brings us along with him. Even though in the third person, I came to know what they were thinking and feeling. At times it’s not pretty. At times it’s really sad. But most of the time it’s moving because in spite of the distance between them, they still love each other. A well written story that will have me checking out his other books.


I received a copy of this book from Ig Publishing through Edelweiss.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Steve Yarbrough’s writing voice in this remarkable novel. The southern setting in Loring, Mississippi and the growing up years of the Cole sisters brought back a lot of memories of my own childhood. Just like Ella and Carolina, I grew up with one sister. There’s a lot of emphasis on a sibling relationship when there’s only the two, no matter the genders. It makes things stark and sad if you don’t get along. If you do, then that’s probably your best friend for life.

In Ella and Caroline, the contrasts are pronounced. Ella, the oldest, straight A’s, blonde, quiet, the voice of an angel when she sings… Caroline, red-headed, filthy mouthed, doesn’t give a damn about her grades or rules… the contrast is almost too sharp, but for me it works and not only holds my attention, but pins it like a butterfly to the page. Yarbrough gets so much right about a sibling relationship. No matter how much we like it (or rail against it), it seems our identities are formed against the background of these shifting contrasts. Ella was preferred by her father and Caroline by her mother, another major shaper of their identity. My sister and I found ourselves in the same predicament. Favoritism does not lead to the best of relationships.

The title of the book is interesting. Caroline plays hooky from school, calling it a ‘stay gone day.’ As Ella’s and Caroline’s lives diverge, they both leave Mississippi. A tragic accident places emphasis on their ‘staying gone’ from their homeplace. Caroline is the more rebellious sister with a dark, lying side. The author could have taken this in many directions. The direction he chose should give hope to all black sheep sons and daughters. That is not to say it was an easy path for Carolina, but only that she began to learn and grow from her experiences.

Ella’s path was more staid, which is not to say that it was boring. It would be worth being on Ella’s journey just to meet Martin Summers, a man consumed by his love for music. And oh, so kind. So real. There are confused and bad men in this book, but it was so nice to read about genuinely caring and kind men.

Two sisters so different yet they could have embraced each other and faced life in solidarity. However, they let their differences define them instead of finding common ground. They let their differences push them apart.

I especially enjoyed how Caroline learns how to step outside the identity that was formulated for her during her growing up years and becomes true to herself.

There are many themes in this book. Racism, classism, the search for identity, forgiveness, reconciliation, leaving home, returning home are some of the major ones. However, considering the title and the path of the novel, I think that Yarbrough’s major theme is… leaving home. Going off and finding enough of yourself to build a life. The girls have to step outside of Loring, Mississippi. Even though our background is always a part of us, we can grow in unlimited ways with the smallest encouragement.

[Carmel Hanes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two sisters, living in the same home but not the same experiences; one is mother's favorite and the other father's favorite; one high-achieving and compliant, the other a rebel without a cause. Formative years that left slimy trails on personality differences until they came to a fork in the road and traveled apart.

A story of estrangement, of the unsaid, of concocted lies, of running away from or towards, of how what we think will happen rarely does while the unthinkable happens with regularity. Anyone with a sibling might recognize some of the transformative dynamics that exert an invisible force in families.

Each sister is given a voice as the narrative shifts between them and encompasses many years of their life-span. I enjoyed following each as leaving home launched them into the unknown, watching to see where their respective choices would take them, how it might change them. I was particularly interested when one of the sisters began to write, recognizing many elements of that journey.

"She could try to explain that the internal logic of the story dictated its development, that it was almost as if it told her where it wanted to go and getting in its way was useless, unless she wanted to give up on writing, which for her would have meant giving up on living. She could say she wishes she hadn't written so close to the bone, but that would be untrue. Writing close to the bone is all she knows how to do."

Much of this sounds a bit like living. We sometimes appear to be on a path that is writing itself.

This was a character driven read that occasionally meandered, but I found myself very interested to find out where they ended up.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

My reaction during and after reading this was miles from the other reviewers here. I very much considered giving it a 3 star rating. Nevertheless, it is, for me, 2.5 stars at the most. And only given that last .5 star for the earlier coming of age sections in the first half for Ella and Caroline.

It was a book that I needed to drag myself back to between other reads after about page 190. I felt rather disconnected from Ella's world in Boston (was actually more interested in Martin)and wanted a whole lot more of their travels (just pittances) beyond the girls' lives they raised. And as in the novel on the whole too- there was WAY too much telling and telling and only now/then a 2 or 3 pages showing. Even within her Liz friendship or her "sister missing" quotient. Repeats.

And Caroline! What a piece of work. Mean spirited and spiteful from infancy to prove what to whom? Beats me the appeal of sorting that soul.

Reasons? I felt like I was at a Smothers' brothers show "Mommy or Daddy liked you more than me" got endlessly redundant.

But I was only embedded when she was interacting with Jack. Same speed- both of them. Somewhat of a contest. Other than he, it was just status quo for her to roll over and desecrate nearly everyone else. Characters like her, I just fail to enjoy any reading experiences. Not even within non-fiction either.

Everyone else hails the writing ability. It's middling at best. I wanted to like the effusions he cores around place setting memories and locales especially. Some of them were ok. But nothing evoking states of being there. Most especially within the Eastern European locations. I've been. They were never over 2 stars.

And what brings it down nearly another whole star- the author's slants for events. Which ones he picks and chooses and what his "true" becomes as real in regards to them or through the "character think" reactions. Especially upon economic reversal times. DID he make me LOL! I was around in the 1950's (not a baby either) and have clear memory until the present day. These people were younger but MAJOR wars of his (this author's) politico "truth eyes" aren't even mentioned. When in any USA reality they would have been pivotal for youth, even of these "just after" group's generation. And in the SOUTH yet. Distorted stereotypes reign instead. They did within the North or NW USA, as well.

This did deserve a 2 star. Other reasons that nail it, most particularly the hand in hand ending. What a bunch of Hallmark saccharine coating. But worse was the stereotyping and conditions of such. It was God awful all the way down the line for generic. Elitist eyes acting like "folks" too repeatedly. That factor was always narrative present and without consistent imagination to make it dramatic. More melodrama fare.

Not my kind of writing style at all. Not sharp. Not core cutting. Could have been a better book for sure, if it was edited by at least a quarter without the consistent nearly identical words for the feeling redundancies.

Southern USA reading excellence? Oh no! There is tons of great Southern USA fiction out there.

[Jo Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've loved every book Steve Yarbrough's written, and this is no exception!

[Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yarbrough’s novel Stay Gone Days tells us a story that spans four decades in the lives of two sisters from the fictional Delta town of Loring, Mississippi. Their stories begin with their adventures in the town’s private high school in the 1970s. Though they go their separate ways, both characters' lives take numerous twists and turns, often arriving where they might think is the end of the road but becomes a new jumping-off place. Yarbrough is an exquisite observer of character and place. His vivid portrayal of the social strata Loring and of iconic Mississippi locales like the Sun-n-Sand in Jackson transport the reader back to that era, though not exactly with nostalgia. There are traumatic events, crimes, betrayals, narrow escapes, triumphs, and attempts at reconciliation that drive his characters along their own winding paths, leading them to landscapes of Central California, Boston, and Poland, familiar to readers of Yarbrough’s fiction.

The novel is, as the reviewer for Rain Taxi called it, “Wise, tender, and honest,” as it “forces readers to confront the inevitability of aging and the choices we make to maintain or sever family ties.” Along the way, Yarbrough, through his characters, provides sage advice on writing, relationships, and life, along with the occasional cultural reference that grounds us in a common time and place, and even a few cameos by writers and musicians. Though both sisters experience their traumas and triumphs, it is in the masterful telling of their stories that they become unforgettable.

[Peter Mladinic · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cottonmouth with a Laptop

Towards the end of Steve Yarbrough’s Stay Gone Days, Ella Summers pulls from folds of her roller suitcase in her room at a Quality Inn a fifth of Four Roses, a blended whiskey.
Ella opens the bottle, pours shots into plastic cups for herself and her sister Caroline and they drink a toast in that room in Loring, Mississippi, “to who we are and who we never were.” Some forty years ago, in Jackson, not far Loring, a similar bottle of Four Roses was opened. It’s a significant detail in this story of the Cole sisters, that ends where it began, that comes full circle, with many detours along the way. Individuals, with marked differences, both sisters are resilient, vulnerable, and passionate, characters so life-like a reader feels “the air making contact with their skin.”

This story not of one but of two is told in third person. It spans a period a little over forty years. At one point, when Ella is a young woman, a student at the Berklee College of Music, in Boston, she is with an instructor who tells her she lacks passion. In his apartment he plies Ella with alcohol, takes her into his bedroom, and proceeds to teach her “what passion isn’t.” That’s not Ella’s first encounter with such a male, the first left her naked and shivering in a broom closet in a motel in Jackson. But passion is in Ella’s nature. She is passionate about her husband Martin, and their daughters Hayley and Lexa. Her gift for music never comes to fruition, but she is passionate in her living. While attending Berklee she waits tables in a restaurant and strikes up a casual friendship with the writer Richard Yates, who gifts Ella an inscribed copy of his story collection Liars in Love, which Caroline comes across years later in Ella’s home, north of Boston. Caroline, a writer herself, with “a license to lie,” is passionate about lying her way to the truth. Ironically, as a girl her lies get her in trouble; at one point she is banned from the public library in Loring. As a woman, who has published a book of stories and a novel, her lies win her acclaim. That novel comes only after an attempt at one she starts and then destroys, in the realization that what is in it is not passionate; she wasn’t lying her way to the truth, wasn’t “making the air contact with the characters’ skin.” But then she did, with her drive, her passion. It’s no coincidence that Yarbrough’s first book of stories is The Oxygen Man and Karo Kohl’s is The Propane Man. And Karo, like her creator, is the author of Stay Gone Days.

Four Roses is significant, so is propane. Both have to do with vulnerability. The Cole sisters, who they are is revealed by who they are with. Kim Taggart, with Ella, breaks out a fifth of Four Roses in her bedroom, and then in the motel room in Jackson. Alton Cole, a husband and father, shows an affection to his older daughter Ella, and whips Caroline, his younger daughter, the bad sister, for reading a book he doesn’t want her reading. Caroline feels unloved by her father, feels his animosity. He repairs radios and tv’s on weekends, and that’s what he wants to do, but what he must do is drive a propane truck. Similarly, he must be with his wife, June, but wants to be with Grace Pace; he wants to be Ella’s father, he must be Caroline’s. The four of them live in a cramped farmhouse with four thin walls, where Caroline feels trapped with her unloving father. Ultimately she escapes from that house, that town, just as Ella escapes from the motel room in Jackson, into which Kim, Ella’s so called friend, has invited Brad Moss, who would have forced himself on Ella had she not gotten out of there quickly. The vulnerability of both sisters is revealed by the characters near them. One male, perhaps, no, definitely, more menacing than Alton Cole, is Tom, whom Caroline meets at a Chevron station in Barstow, California.

Just as Tom reveals Caroline’s vulnerability, he also reveals her resilience. She is a liar, he is a pathological liar, a criminal (stealing much more than a library book), and a murderer. (One must ask, were Tom never in Caro’s life would she have become a novelist?) He’s a bad man, but never dull. That Caro gets away from Tom and gets beyond him reveals her resilience. He is as evil as Julio good, and, later on, Alastair. Similarly, Ella’s resilience is revealed in her friendship with Liz and her marriage to Martin. Early on in this novel the word hospice appears in relation to Ella, who, some three years after Martin’s death, has stage IV cancer. Like her sister she is a survivor. Unlike Caroline, Ella doesn’t pick up and run from a psychotic criminal, but she deals with the fact that she is not as musically talented as others at Berklee, she deals with being alone and in financial straits in a big city far from home, she deals with making for herself a new home, a new life. She doesn’t sing as well as Maeve, Martin’s talented sister, but she lives well. In Ella’s old life she has the false friend Kim, in her new life she has the true friend, Liz. And her two daughters and her sister.

At the end, the Cole sisters are back in Loring, downtown on a sidewalk when Irwin, a character from Ella’s youth, steps out of a hardware store. He’d tried to kiss her in a parked car on a turnrow one night. She adamantly refused his advances, and he profusely apologized. Now he sees the sisters Cole hand in hand, but doesn’t recognize them, and thinks that kind of thing just isn’t done here.

Their story is one of love and redemption.

[Lisa Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Thoroughly enjoyable read

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute 10/10. This book details the lives of sisters, connected by childhood trauma, but separated by the fallout of their escape from the small town in which they grew up. They are very different girls (and women) and their trajectories are just as different. It is a fascinating portrait of nature vs. nurture and the bonds and disconnection of family.  I loved the main characters Ella and Caroline, and their personal stories, as well as their estrangement is heartbreaking and expertly written. There are moments that are referenced again and again which keeps a beautiful thread throughout the book - all the way to the final page.

This is the first book I've cried at in what feels like a while, and to me, that is a SIGN!!! I found this book on my favorite book blog - it's definitely more literary, and somewhat aimless, though there is definitely a compelling story being told.

We follow the Coles through each chapter of their lives, sometimes together, but mostly apart. Big rec, I love this. Will be thinking about this book for a while.

[Gerry Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Stay Gone Days, Steve Yarbrough is at the top of his art. Stay Gone Days weaves the story of two sisters, Ella and Caroline Cole. Though they are vastly different—Ella is the "good" sister, dependable, smart, and talented; Caroline is the troublemaker—both young women find their own ways to leave their toxic family and shameful pasts behind. They are separated for many years, but time and distance prove inadequate to heal the sisters' hurts until Caroline finds the courage to write a novel of her own. Yarbrough explores in depth the inability to escape the past unless or until we find ways to make peace with it, and then the healing doesn't come easily. As I read the last pages of this novel, I wondered how many of us are, at heart, as haunted by the past as the sisters, Ella and Caroline? Stay Gone Days is a beautiful and harrowing novel in all the very best ways.

[Diane King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sisters

When you don’t know what if feels like to have blood sisters, you conjure them up in your head. Steve Yarbrough has done an excellent job of “conjuring” in this book that takes you from the Deep South, across the US to Eastern Europe and Poland. You will love the trip.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well done (3+++ star) story about sisters - - and the love and pull between them even when they are estranged. Ella (the older, smart, mostly well behaved) and Caroline (the younger, less behaved) grew up in a rough world and home in Mississippi. Ella went to Boston to college on a voice scholarship. She didn’t finish college, but, after a short directionless time, married a kind, loving, well-to-do man. Caroline took a quite different route. She stuck out on her own and wandered throughout the US, staying out of her sister’s life. Caroline started telling little lies to help support her itinerant lifestyle. As we know, one lie begets another lie. Caroline’s choices of companions were not good and, as a result of a dramatic, terrible event, she had to completely reinvent herself and wound up in Poland with a whole new life. Of course, the tide of life changes, and, by the end, it is Ella who does not have a solid life, and Caroline (an author), who does. But the spirit of the book was all about the concept of sisters. Even though estranged, Ella and Caroline were never far from each other’s hearts and minds. I also felt that Yarborough’s description of Caroline’s wandering, lies and more wandering and lies (for all of which she paid many huge prices), were extremely well done – the reader both felt and understood her dilemmas and choices. I have not read this author before, but would read more of his work.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stay Gone Days takes its title from the habit of one of two sisters who skips out--of school, of responsibility, of connection--but it is a story that will not stay gone from the reader's mind. Nor will the two sisters who are its protagonists eventually be able to skip out on each other, despite a near lifetime of difference and alienation. This is a beautiful book that picks you up by the collar from the first page and won't let you go until the last. I am endlessly fascinated by the way authors treat the passage of time in fiction--it's the sine qua non of prose, and only a very skilled writer can create transitions that are as compelling as scenes. Steve Yarbrough is an artist at the top of his form in this novel, which is one of a very few books I've read that I've wanted to reread the minute I finished, not because I felt I missed something, but because I loved it and did not want to leave it behind. Stay Gone Days is a brilliant and deeply touching novel.

[Mitchell Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Stay Gone Days Steve Yarbrough gives us a story of two estranged sisters, engaging us from page one in their history and diverging paths, keeping us wondering how and if their paths will cross again. An excellent story by a master storyteller.

[Sujin Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars.

[Erin Matson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stay Gone Days is a novel, but also a master class in writing fiction.

[Cindy Kellogg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about estranged sisters and their lives apart.

[Laurie Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved the book.

[Loretta Crouse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Going to be a DNF for me. Made it to page 124 and I am just bored. First couple chapters were good but then it feels slow. Too many good books to read one I don’t enjoy.

[Jane McKelvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

not as much plot as i usually go for but i was entertained for sure. depressing though i identify thoroughly with the one with the dead end life

[Lynn Shurden · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book.