Ghost at the table, by Suzanne Berne. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006.
Against her better judgment, Cynnie allows herself to be persuaded to travel to her sister's house for Thanksgiving weekend. She expected to accomplish three things over the weekend: help settle her father into a care facility, visit Mark Twain's home, and share Thanksgiving dinner with her sister's family. Nothing goes as expected: there's no room at the care home, strangers have been invited to dinner, and old and unresolved emotional "baggage"colors all the relationships. What was most unsettling to me was that the author never actually resolved the central question: how did their mother really die, so many years ago? There are four equally plausible suspects.