I did not realize how much I missed laughing out loud until I started Annie Hartnett’s fabulously funny novel, The Road to Tender Hearts. From the get-go, it’s a hilarious and heartwarming escape from all that is decidedly not hilarious and heartwarming in the world today.
With her wry humor, kooky characters, and a little magical realism thrown in for good measure, Hartnett bridges absurdity and tenderness in a way that kept me flipping pages and wishing desperately that I was riding along with her characters on their road trip. Plus it has a map. I adore maps in books.
Hartnett begins with an origin story in fictitious Pondville, Massachusetts, meandering from point to point in a way that is as engaging as it is a little confusing. And involves a special cat, Pancakes.
Eventually, after a strangely ridiculous murder-suicide gone wrong, precocious elementary school siblings Luna and Ollie are suddenly orphaned.
The real chaos begins with PJ Halliday, a 63-year-old alcoholic hoarder who hasn’t matured past his teenaged-boy years. He also happens to be a million-dollar lottery winner, though he has spent the bulk of his fortune without any real evidence of a life well lived. Money doesn’t solve his problems.
When PJ learns that his unrequited high school love Michelle is newly single in far-away Arizona, he decides to go on a cross-country quest to reconnect with her. This is complicated for several reasons:
- He doesn’t like to fly
- He can’t drive (multiple DUIs)
- He doesn’t own a car
- He suddenly discovers that he’s the designated guardian for Luna and Ollie
None of these things prove to be impediments for PJ, though. He “borrows” a car from his ex-wife’s soon-to-be new husband, cajoles his adult daughter to do the driving, and packs the kids—along with the opportunistic and aforementioned stray cat, Pancakes—into the station wagon. What could go wrong?
Thankfully for us, everything. What follows is a series of escapades bizarre yet completely logical. (The book is a welcome break from the bizarre and utterly illogical happenings that fill our news these days.)
Hartnett’s writing is sharp and spare, filled with joyously sardonic one-liners. Her characters are meticulously drawn and thoroughly consistent, right down to Pancakes, who blithely wreaks havoc (and mostly merited death), wherever he struts. So very cat-like.
The Road to Tender Hearts was a happy reminder that life can be messy, people are weird, and love—however unlikely—is worth chasing. PJ’s journey isn’t just about unrequited romance—it’s about reconnection, redemption, and finding meaning in the absurd. Even a million dollars couldn’t save him from himself. But two kids and a cat do.