Underneath the Quiet

<p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Maureen and Bertha Callahan are competitive sisters in a dysfunctional family in 1932 Riverside California whose relationship is made even more complex by Maureen's unique perspective and behaviors (guided by what today might be called autism). </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Into their world launches handsome Cuthbert the disgraced scion of a wealthy New York family. Though he becomes part of the Callahan social circle when he begins a painting of the family house Cuthbert is ever more entangled in it when he finds love with a young man who has been riding the rails from San Antonio Texas. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Though </span><em style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Underneath the Quiet</em><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> hurtles toward a culminating grand party a rifle and a double murder Mark Albro has not written just a twisty family drama but an exploration of life on the autism spectrum a historical novel about sometimes surprising social norms and a love letter to a vanishing Southern California where wonderful orange groves are being replaced by cookie-cutter tract houses.</span></p>