Set in the forbidding landscape of central Alaska, The Smell of Other People’s Houses (2016) is a coming-of-age narrative that intertwines the stories of four very different teenagers as they each come to terms with the realities of their dysfunctional families. In each other and their improbable friendships, they find a pathway to hopeful futures.

Although marketed as Young Adult fiction, educators and parents praised the novel as much for its poetic prose as for its unflinching portrayal of the complex issues teens must often confront, including unexpected pregnancy, poverty, racism, divorce, religious bigotry, alcoholism, and sexual abuse. The novel received numerous YA awards, most notably shortlisted for the prestigious William C. Morris Medal, presented annually by the American Library Association for the most accomplished debut YA novel.

The novel opens in 1970. Sixteen-year-old Ruth Lawrence, growing up in the poorer neighbors of Fairbanks, Alaska, barely remembers her father, a passionate advocate against Alaskan statehood killed in a plane crash on his way back from Washington when she was five. Her mother, who never recovered from the trauma, was committed to a nearby Catholic-run hospital soon after.

Ruth and her younger sister, Lily, were raised by their grandmother, Marguerite, whose staunch Catholicism makes her an intimidating disciplinarian. When Ruth finds herself pregnant after a reckless night with a casual boyfriend, she is not sure where to turn. She confides in her close friend, the ever-upbeat Selma, who is raised by her aunt, Abigail Flowers.

Abigail’s other niece, sixteen-year-old Alyce, helps out her father, a commercial fisherman. Her mother, despairing over the dead-end of life in Fairbanks, divorced her father years earlier. Alyce, a gifted dancer, dreams of pursuing ballet and has her hopes pinned on an approaching audition for a prestigious ballet company. She hesitates because she believes her father relies on her to help run the struggling fishing business.

Teenager Dora Peters faces an uncertain life. Her father, an alcoholic given to violent rages, is in jail after shooting up the bathroom at a local dive. Her mother, a barely functioning alcoholic, scrounges for money to provide for her daughter. Dora spends much of her time at the home of her friend, the good-natured Dumpling. Dora enters a local lottery to predict the day in the spring when the ice on the nearby river will finally thaw. Dora wins the $2000 prize, which only enrages her greedy father.

Meanwhile, down the coast in Sitka, seventeen-year-old Hank and his two younger brothers, Jack (14) and Sam (16), face a grim future when their mother, a widow, decides to remarry. Their father, a fisherman, died in the massive 1964 Good Friday Earthquake when he took out his boat after the earthquake and a resulting tsunami overtook him. Deciding that life with an abusive stepfather is untenable, the three brothers stow away on a ferry headed north.

Cramped in the baggage deck, the boys sneak on deck to find something to eat. Sam is momentarily mesmerized by a passing pod of orcas, recalling his belief that his father was saved by whales. As he stares into the water, he accidentally falls overboard. Alyce, out on the water with her father, rescues the floating boy.

Meanwhile, Ruth’s grandmother, now aware of Ruth’s pregnancy, dispatches Ruth to a Catholic orphanage in the Canadian Yukon. Marguerite was raised there when her parents abandoned her. Before Ruth boards the bus, she gives Dumpling a note to deliver to her mother. In return, Dumpling gifts Ruth with a red ribbon she says will bring her love.

On the ferry, Hank and Jack search for their missing brother....