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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThen, I didn\u2019t have the language to describe what I was feeling: the remoteness and separation from the larger world; the way that anyone who left and stayed away was otherized\u2014as if wanting to get away from a county with a high teen pregnancy rate and a low per capita income was the fault of the leaver; the sense of tension that is often present in rural areas, in that the pastoral beauty is a scrim over a hard way of living. Books fulfilled a desire for connection with the larger world, and often helped articulate another tension: the push and pull between isolation and community.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My fifth book, The Last Supper<\/em><\/a>, looks at these themes I\u2019m perennially obsessed with\u2014the impact of loneliness and seclusion, the human need for companionship, the necessity of finding people with whom we have commonality\u2014and views them through the lens of my protagonist Amanda, a mother of two young children who is searching for more creative and economic agency in her life. It\u2019s a novel for anyone who cares about how we build relationships and the ways that expectations around how family structures are \u201csupposed\u201d to work often impede our own happiness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the spirit of looking for and finding community, here are eight books that examine this idea from different perspectives. Whether that is tight-knit friend groups who weather changes in life or themes of reconciling with the dead, the books on this list illustrate the complexity of finding our place in the world, all while showing that it really is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n