Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,136

he catches me. I knew he would.

This is you. This is now.

Damn straight it is.

Acknowledgments

I think as I get older I begin to ask questions about what it’s all about, why we are here, and what it is I’m searching for. And then Neil deGrasse Tyson goes and says it way better than I could ever imagine: “We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that.”

This life is about connectivity. People. Love.

Period.

I am thankful—like a quivering mound of flesh when I think of them thankful—for my family. Mom, Don, Alex, Joe, Zoë, and Bonnie. And Poet, of course.

Thanks to everyone at Fletcher and Company.

Appreciation to the team at HarperCollins: Carrie Feron, Tessa Woodward, Lauren Cook, Jean Marie Kelly, Mary Sasso, Seale Ballenger, and on and on.

Thankful praise for Kerri and her adorable fam, Marilyn, Christine, Paige, Henry and Norm, Kim and the Crazies, Kim and Mark, David and Kathie, Nicole and Bekka, Dave and Jen, Mark and Sara, Alyssa, Michelle, Kurt, Matthew, Milly, Mia and Nikki, Scott, Larry and Ricca, Sharon, Jane, Juanita, Donna, Glo, Kit and Margaret, Lynn and Rich.

Thank you to Randy Barbour for helping me not embarrass myself when it comes to all things Texas. Thanks to Nina and Matt for showing me around Austin. Thanks to the Katy House in Smithville, Texas, for putting me up while I soaked in their beautiful city.

Thank you to my readers. You make me teary just thinking about how great you are.

And thank you to Mariage Frères tea, the open road, and great music.

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About the author

Meet Liza Palmer

LIZA PALMER is the author of Conversations with the Fat Girl, which became an international bestseller during its first week of publication and hit number one on the Fiction Heatseekers List in the UK the week before its debut. Conversations with the Fat Girl has been optioned for a TV series by HBO.

Palmer’s second novel is Seeing Me Naked, about which Publishers Weekly says, “Consider it haute chick lit; Palmer’s prose is sharp, her characters are solid and her narrative is laced with moments of graceful sentiment.”

Entertainment Weekly calls her third book, A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents, a “splendid novel” and Real Simple says it “has heart and humor.”

More Like Her is Palmer’s fourth novel. The book received a starred review from Library Journal in which they said, “The blend of humor and sadness is realistic and gripping, and watching Frannie figure out who she is and what matters is gratifying.”

After earning two Emmy nominations for writing during the first season of VH1’s Pop Up Video, Palmer now knows far too much about Fergie.

Nowhere but Home is her fifth novel.

About the book

One Last Meal

by Liza Palmer

WHEN I FIRST started writing Nowhere but Home, I had no idea what my last meal would be. Do you know yours? It’s a weird thought, right?

One last meal.

It took writing this book for me to understand what it is we’re trying to capture—much like lightning in a bottle. We’re trying to re-create a moment, a perfect moment when, as Frank Ocean so beautifully put it, “time would glide.”

For me it comes down to three foods. Three foods that transport me, calm me, and surround me with love. These three foods are what I would want in my last moments, not because they’re the best things I ever tasted but because in eating them I am loved once more.

Poppa Don’s Gnocchi

For Christmas dinner every year my amazing stepdad makes his homemade gnocchi and a beautiful filet. My mom puts out the good china, and we gather around the table in the sparkly light of the season. We talk and laugh. My parents’ ridiculous French bulldogs snuffle under the table for scraps. We are tired from Christmas morning, and yet we are all showered and most likely wearing something we were gifted that very morning.

Not only is Poppa Don’s cheesy, mouth-watering gnocchi at the center of the Christmas table, it’s at the center of the entire season.

Sitting around that Christmas table, we are a family.

Alex’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

She’s one of those bakers who says, “It’s easy. It’s just the recipe off the back of the chocolate chip bag!” Yet I try to make the same cookies, and they come out sad, flat, and tasteless. (I still eat them of course! I’m