Real Life and Other Fictions: A Novel

Cassie Klein has always used stories to help her fly, but now her plot lines aren't lining up.

At 55, Cassie has already weathered more than most. She was orphaned at the age of three and has never fully understood why her DC-based parents were on a bridge in West Virginia that just so happened to collapse as they drove across it. Her search for answers prompted a failed career in journalism, and now she's an aspiring novelist teaching at a local community college waiting for her literary dreams to finally come true. She stood by her once-doting husband when his meteorology career took a nosedive, and now she's worried that the man who became an internet meme might have the audacity to be cheating on her.

She's had enough. She scoops up a teething puppy and her current work in progress that somehow never seems to get longer to embark on a road trip that's heavy on impulse and light on planning. She's not sure where she's going, but she knows she might as well start at the beginning. The very first question she can remember: what really happened to her parents all those years ago?

In this comically surreal, warmhearted journey, she encounters people she never knew existed--chief among them, an enigmatic cryptozoologist, who helps her in the quest to discover her past. And all along the way, she looks for answers regarding the curious reports of the local myth known as the Mothman in the months before her parents died. As the line between real life and fiction blurs, Cassie finds herself grappling with the nature of stories, myths, and who gets to write the endings.