Deahn Berrini
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 287
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In this quick paced, character driven novel, Kit Lavoie has lost a college scholarship and is back at home, a small seaside town north of Boston. Responsible for her childlike mother, Ruby, and brother, Larry, she takes a job with a personal injury lawyer, and willingly goes along when her boss enlists her help to snare a wealthy defendant who could make the firm millions. Larry is big hearted but lacks focus. Pressed by his sister to contribute to the household income, he takes a job caring for the polo ponies of a wealthy local landowner. After one night with the polo trainer, Billy, in the landowner's red brocade bed, Larry accepts that he prefers men to women; after months in his company, Larry finds he prefers Billy to everyone. Kit begins to question the competence of the wealthy defendant; she watches her best friend settle a convenient marriage. And, the bills pile up. Larry steals a beautiful coat from the landowner's closet to give to Kit for Christmas. Discovering the theft, the landowner presses Larry into giving up Billy. When Kit finds the elderly defendant wandering the frigid salt marshes looking for birds out of season, she re-examines her actions and recognizes her complicity in her boss's questionable ethics as well her role in the loss of her college funding. As Kit decides that, for her, complicity is as good as guilty, she risks her livelihood to get the elderly driver competent advice, and then pushes her brother to embrace his love for Billy. Set on windy ocean marshes and in historic Salem, How to Earn Your Keep takes a hard look at how economic stress can unravel one's morality. And how, sometimes, one illuminating moment can bring us back to our senses.