Three Keys

A Novel

By: Laura Pritchett

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

Newly widowed and unemployed, a woman in her mid-fifties sets off on a journey of trespassing and adventure through the American West and beyond in Three Keys, a witty, thought-provoking novel from the PEN USA Award–winning writer.

“Filled with award-winner Pritchett’s electric prose and love of the natural world, Three Keys is irresistible.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Days of Wonder1

Becoming invisible is painful . . . unless you know how to work it.

Ammalie Brinks has just lost the three keys of her life’s purpose—her husband, her job, and her role as a mom, after her son went off to college. She’s also mystified to find herself in middle age: How exactly had that happened? The terrifying idea of becoming irrelevant, invisible, of letting her life slip away Into obscurity, has her driving distracted through Nebraska with a broken plastic fork in her tangled hair.

But what Ammalie has found are three literal keys, saved in a drawer for years, from her and her husband’s past. They are the keys to homes that she hopes will be empty—and plans on spending time in. Embarking on an international and increasingly complicated journey (criminal behavior turns out to be challenging!), she seeks to find a life truly her own. And that middle-age business? As someone breaking the law, Ammalie finds there's a real benefit to being invisible when you’re working on becoming the striking, bold, and very much manifested self you want to be.

Laura Pritchett, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Colorado Book Award, offers a delightful exploration of the very serious business of living a full and honest life. Filled with love, heartbreak, and misdemeanors, Three Keys tackles the unavoidable sorrows and joys experienced during a second coming of age with the zest and vigor that it deserves.

An unlikely, honest story about coming into your own.

I really enjoyed the poetic writing, the beautiful relationships and the things that Amelie learned during her journey.

Happy ending.

There were several times where the main character’s actions made me anxious but in the end it all worked out okay. I would like to have read more about Levi.

Why all the f—- words???

The book’s concept and story were good. However, the constant use of the F—- word got very old, very quickly. The continual use of the F—- word is a lazy and unoriginal way of writing. Please find better ways to relay thoughts and/or feelings!

A universally honest epic on aging and renewal

Page after page, I found myself encountering moments in my own life, both in the shattering of self and in the possibility—a lifelong quiet yearning—for something more.
In Amelie, we get to live into adventures, encounters, relationships, outside of work, marriage, and parenting. We get to take on our fears and grow, transform. We get to indulge dreams far beyond what our deceptively rigid culture places upon us, what our society expects of us. "Us". Women that have aged out of 'the male gaze' we were trained to live into.
Three Keys feels like the tired, knowing, shared gaze between female comrades in the unspoken battle against feminine power—a reassuring hug and a wink that we'll get through it in the way women do. Not with masculine force or retaliation, but with un-cliched love, risky kindness, naked courage, and tender honesty. On the other side? Our truer, brighter, freer selves.
I devoured it~

Believable! I’m envious!

Likes it all!! Flows well and is believable! I may set out on my own adventure now!