Three Keys: A Novel

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.

Laura Pritchett is the author of seven novels and two books of nonfiction. Her work is rooted in the American West and has been significantly influenced by her upbringing in Colorado. Both her fiction and nonfiction often focus on issues of ecology, conservation, climate change, and social justice. She has been awarded the PEN USA Award for Fiction, the High Plains Literary Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the Colorado Book Award, the WILLA Fiction Award, and shortlisted for many others. She is the editor of three anthologies, all on environmental topics, and writes regularly for magazines.