The free brontosaurus & Cardboard boat

Meet Russell. Former Plainview city archivist, he keeps a folio on all city zoning issues and development plans. Goes to all the public hearings. He spends a lot of time in the library. He talks to himself. His life changes one morning when, on his daily walk, he spotted a stone brontosaurus out on the curb being given away. His life changes again several months later when someone long absent comes back into his life.

Suzie is a single mother struggling to hold it all together, nostalgic for the days when she was the child and her mother was around to take care of her, to stock the fridge and freezer, to tuck her into bed. She sees the image of a colored bird in a splotch of frozen juice on a pizza box and everything changes.

A bad Ayahuasca trip changes everything for physics professor Owen Hobbes. His weekly visits with his former colleague Carl are all that keeps him above water.

Sheila is an outsider artist who builds sculptures out of found items and trash. She’s also a pacifist who drives an art car. But her Zen philosophies are put to the test when she walks in on her husband cheating on her.

Harvey has worked on or near boats his whole life, but he finds it harder and harder to find a job the older he gets. He moves to Plainview because he has nowhere left to go. Ultimately, he’s hired to work on the new bridge being built. But it’s not clear that’s enough to save him.

Eliza is the Goth-dressing aspiring writer who works at the circulation desk of Plainview’s library. She sees a the other characters coming in and out. She wonders about them. She writes about them. She’s in the library when the earthquake hits, and it gives her an idea for how to help these people.

Unlike most people her age, Rose moves into not out of Plainview. She’s trying to quit living in the past, but she finds herself unable to stop talking to her dead husband.

Martha is a horder. She finds all sorts of bits and pieces of art and junk that most would overlook. A foam sculpture of a brontosaurus is just one example of something she brings home off the street. At first her husband Carl is complicit. But Martha is compensating for something. And as Carl learns what it is, the objects filling their home nearly drive him away.

When George’s wife leaves him, he does not see it coming. It leaves him reeling. Then George discovers the new bridge being built. He becomes obsessed with that bridge, goes down daily to chart its progress. Slowly but steadily, as the bridge inches toward the opposite shore, George picks himself back up.

Say hello to Lucy. She is the final character we meet in the book. She’s been estranged from Russell (the first character we meet) for over twenty years. When she finally returns to find him it doesn’t seem like it will work out. But slowly but surely the two piece each other back together.